Here’s what the James Webb Space Telescope will study in its first year

By Georgina Torbet April 4, 2021

Artist's impression of the James Webb Space Telescope — Artist’s impression of the James Webb Space Telescope ESA/ATG medialab

The Hubble Space Telescope is a beloved scientific institution, but at more than 20 years old it’s getting rather long in the tooth. That’s why NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are joining forces to create the James Webb Space Telescope, a cutting-edge astronomy instrument that is set to launch later this year.

The instruments on board James Webb will enable science discoveries beyond anything possible right now, such as looking at exoplanets to see if they have atmospheres and whether any might be like Earth.

Recommended Videos

But exoplanet atmospheres aren’t the only topic that Webb will be researching. This week, NASA officials have announced the roster of scientific programs which the telescope will study in its first year. This includes programs to research how stars are formed, research into the climate and composition of bodies like planets and comets within our own solar system, and even programs to study the formation of the universe itself by looking for the earliest galaxies.

“The initial year of Webb’s observations will provide the first opportunity for a diverse range of scientists around the world to observe particular targets with NASA’s next great space observatory,” said Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA in a statement. “The amazing science that will be shared with the global community will be audacious and profound.”

All of these programs will be a part of Cycle 1, which is the name for the first year of the telescope’s science operations. In total 266 proposals were selected from a highly competitive pool of thousands, as many more researchers would like time on the telescope than is available. The committee in charge of the selection had to whittle down the proposals to the most scientifically valuable, and they ended up awarding 6,000 hours of time on the telescope to the various projects.

“We are opening the infrared treasure chest, and surprises are guaranteed,” said Dr. John C. Mather, Senior Project Scientist for the Webb mission and Senior Astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “How did the universe make galaxies, stars, black holes, and planets, and our own very special little Earth? I don’t know yet, but we are getting closer every day.”

You can see a full list of all the programs planned for Webb’s first year of operations here.

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…

Space

Zoom into stunning James Webb image to see a galaxy formed 13.4 billion years ago

A section of a James Webb image showing a small part of the Extended Groth Strip, located between the Ursa Major and Boötes constellations.

One of the amazing things about the James Webb Space Telescope is the level of detail it is able to capture of very distant objects -- but it can be hard to picture what that means when the distances being considered are so large. Now, a new visualization gives a feel of just how detailed the data from the telescope is, by showing how it's possible to start with a stunning view of thousands of galaxies and zoom closer and closer in until you reach just one.

CEERS: Flight to Maisie's Galaxy

Space

One galaxy, two views: see a comparison of images from Hubble and Webb

The peculiar galaxy NGC 3256 takes centre stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This distorted galaxy is the wreckage of a head-on collision between two spiral galaxies which likely occurred 500 million years ago, and it is studded with clumps of young stars which were formed as gas and dust from the two galaxies collided.

It might not seem obvious why astronomers need multiple different powerful space telescopes. Surely a more powerful telescope is better than a less powerful one? So why are there multiple different telescopes in orbit, either around Earth or around the sun?

The answer is to do with two main factors. One is the telescope's field of view, meaning how much of the sky it looks at. Some telescopes are useful for looking at large areas of the sky in less detail, working as survey telescopes to identify objects for further research or to look at the universe on a large scale -- like the recently launched Euclid mission. While others, like the Hubble Space Telescope, look at small areas of the sky in great detail, which is useful for studying particular objects.

Space

James Webb spots the most distant active supermassive black hole ever discovered

Crop of Webb's CEERS Survey image.

As well as observing specific objects like distant galaxies and planets here in our solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope is also being used to perform wide-scale surveys of parts of the sky. These surveys observe large chunks of the sky to identify important targets like very distant, very early galaxies, as well as observe intriguing objects like black holes. And one such survey has recently identified the most distant active supermassive black hole seen so far.

While a typical black hole might have a mass up to around 10 times that of the sun, supermassive black holes are much more massive, with a mass that can be millions or even billions of times the mass of the sun. These monsters are found at the heart of galaxies and are thought to play important roles in the formation and merging of galaxies.