Science

Even reaching this point had taken decades of planning, threatened cancellations, delays upon delays, a pandemic and a round of harrowing reverse origami that was needed to unfold the telescope in deep space without breaking it. In Baltimore, this group’s task was a mix of on-the-fly science, public communication and brand management: Blow everyone’s mind, … Read more

The Webb telescope’s primary mirror is 6.5 meters in diameter, compared with Hubble’s, which is 2.4 meters, giving Webb about seven times as much light-gathering capability and thus the ability to see further into the past. Another crucial difference is that Webb is equipped with cameras and other instruments sensitive to infrared, or “heat,” radiation. … Read more

WASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III’s opposition to government incentives for electric vehicles is a sticking point in negotiations over President Biden’s tax and spending package — talks that appear to be coming to a head this week after months of fits and starts. Mr. Biden and most Senate Democrats want billions of dollars in … Read more

In 2002, Sean O’Keefe, then the NASA administrator, announced that the agency’s next telescope would be named for James Webb, who led NASA during the 1960s, when it was gearing up to land people on the moon. He was a staunch champion of space science. Some astronomers were disappointed that it would not be named … Read more

The Carina nebula is a turbulent cloud of gas, dust about 7,600 light-years from here, a birthplace and graveyard for some of the Milky Way’s hottest and most massive stars. The nebula is home to some of the most luminous and potentially explosive stars in the galaxy. Among them in particular is Eta Carinae, a … Read more

Setting stunning space pictures aside, the bulk of the James Webb Space Telescope’s most profound scientific work — the where-do-we-come-from, are-we-alone stuff — will probably involve little squiggles on graphs of a planet orbiting a distant star. Many astronomers want to sniff out which molecules swirl and waft through the atmosphere of planets around other … Read more

NASA and its partner space agencies revealed a stunning series of images — from the Carina Nebula in our own Milky Way to a cluster of galaxies much farther away — taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory ever launched. The photograph below shows Stephan’s Quintet, five galaxies, … Read more

In July 1693, a large Spanish galleon set sail from the Philippines with a full cargo load of Asian luxury goods, including silk, porcelain and beeswax. The ship was destined for Acapulco, Mexico, when it veered off course and vanished. The ship’s fate has been the subject of a mystery that endured for more than … Read more

On Tuesday morning, NASA will show off the first pictures and data from the new James Webb Space Telescope. That will bring to an end some 30 years and $10 billion of planning, building, testing and innovating, followed by 6 months of terror, tension and anticipation. The pictures constitute a sightseeing tour of the universe … Read more

In 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope, the beleaguered project to build an instrument that could gaze back to the earliest stars in the universe, appeared to be going off the rails. Again. The pieces of the telescope and its instruments were complete, but they needed to be assembled and tested. The launch date was … Read more