James Webb Space Telescope

Astronomers have discovered an unusual gravitationally stimulated supernova whose light traveled more than 10 billion years to reach Earth. Illustration: depositphotos.com

Rare Excited Supernova May Help Decipher the Rate of Expansion of the Universe

The event SN 2025wny, seen through gravitational lensing after a journey of more than ten billion years, may provide a new measurement of the Hubble constant and contribute to the understanding of dark energy.
Spiral galaxy ESO 137-001, seen here in a Hubble image, is an example of a "jellyfish" galaxy, because blue tendrils of star formation extend from it like the hunting tentacles of a jellyfish. Credit: NASA, ESA

Distant “Medusa” Galaxy with Arms of Gas and Stars Discovered in the Early Universe

James Webb Space Telescope observations reveal the most distant Jellyfish galaxy ever observed – evidence that gas stripping in galaxy clusters occurred as early as 8.5 billion years ago
Webb has provided the first detailed 3D image of Uranus' upper atmosphere, revealing auroras, heat peaks thousands of kilometers high, and the strong influence of its tilted magnetic field. The data also confirms that the planet has been cooling for decades. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

James Webb Space Telescope maps Uranus' upper atmosphere in 3D for the first time

New research reveals the vertical structure of Uranus' ionosphere, discovers auroras influenced by the planet's unusual tilted magnetic field, and confirms that its upper atmosphere has been cooling since the 1990s.
Computer simulation showing baby black holes growing in a young galaxy in the early universe. Credit: Dr John Regan

New simulations offer a solution: This is how black holes grew quickly to become supermassive in the early universe

Simulation study claims that the young universe was chaotic and rich in dense gas, allowing even “light seeds” to undergo “binge” episodes that exceeded conventional growth limits
The Pandora Space Telescope. (NASA Scientific Visualization Studio)

NASA launches tiny space telescope Pandora to study atmospheres of 20 exoplanets

The telescope will simultaneously measure visible and infrared light to separate “noise” from the host star from the signature of the atmosphere, and will help improve observations by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Galaxy with a pole. Illustration: depositphotos.com

A galaxy with a star bar as it was about 11.5 billion years ago

The illustration shows the Earth-sized exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e (bottom right) as it passes in front of its exploding host star in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)

James Webb Space Telescope Detects Methane on Planet TRAPPIST-1e – Scientists Warn Against Jumping to Conclusions

Hints of methane on an Earth-like planet in TRAPPIST-1's habitable zone raise hope for signs of life, but new analysis suggests the signal may be "noise" from the host star – and more observations are needed to confirm.
An artist's impression of a supermassive black hole tearing apart a giant star, at least 30 times the mass of the Sun. This is how scientists explain what happened around the distant black hole J2245+3743, which in 2018 caused the brightest flare ever measured from a black hole – with a luminous intensity of about 10 trillion suns – detected by the ZTF and Catalina sky surveys.

Webb's first depth field and the brightest flare from a supermassive black hole

James Webb Space Telescope reveals stunning deep-sky image of thousands of distant galaxies, while Caltech's ZTF sky survey reveals record flare from supermassive black hole that devoured a giant star 10 billion light-years away
Image credit: Conceptual design for a rectangular space telescope, based on the Diffractive Interfero Coronagraph Exoplanet Resolver (DICER) — an infrared space observatory — and the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: Leif Svardi/Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Circle vs. Rectangle: Searching for 'Earth 2.0' may be easier with new telescope shape

Engineers propose changing the way we observe planets outside our solar system to increase resolution in order to identify conditions on small planets, in particular to find Earth-like ones.
Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to detect a planet of similar mass to Saturn around the young star TWA 7. In this image, which combines data from the VLT ground-based telescope and Webb's MIRI instrument, the star's light has been removed. The location of the star is marked by a circle with an asterisk in the center. The blue area indicates the disk around the star (SPHERE data), and the orange area indicates the MIRI data. The bright orange spot at the top right is TWA 7 b. The orange spot on the far left is an unrelated background star. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Anne-Marie Lagrange (CNRS, UGA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Webb Telescope directly captures planet forming cosmic rings around young star for the first time

Planet TWA 7 b, with a mass similar to Saturn, is exactly where theoretical models predicted • If confirmed, it would be the lightest planet ever directly observed
NGC4921, a bar galaxy similar to the one recently discovered. Photo: ALMA

Scientists Just Found the Oldest Bar Spiral Galaxy—and It's Monster

A massive barred spiral galaxy from 11.1 billion years ago shows never-before-seen star formation and gas dynamics. It could reshape our understanding of how galaxies like the Milky Way form.
The Webb Space Telescope has provided evidence that contradicts existing theories by confirming the existence of long-lived protoplanetary disks in heavy-element-deficient environments, suggesting the need to change our understanding of planet formation in the early universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Olivia C. Jones (UK ATC), Guido de Markey (ESTEC), Margaret Meixner (USRA)

The James Webb Space Telescope challenges theories about the formation of planets in the early universe

New discoveries indicate that protoplanetary discs can survive longer in environments poor in heavy elements, contrary to previous assumptions
This image taken by Webb shows an ancient quasar (in the red circle) with fewer neighboring galaxies than expected. Credit: Christina Eilers/EIGER team

The Webb Space Telescope discovers quasars where they shouldn't exist

Astronomers have used the Web to discover individual ancient quasars of uncertain origin
The James Webb Space Telescope in front of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, the first galaxy field revealed by the telescope. Early results from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed surprisingly large early galaxies, challenging current cosmic models. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Tel Aviv 360 podcast: Two years of James Webb, episode 1: The great wonder in the sky

In the first episode we will talk with Professor Dan Maoz, from the School of Physics and Astronomy: we will understand how the telescope works and what distinguishes it from its predecessors, about the advantage of viewing in infrared light, how the scientific community works with the telescope,
The 25 most interesting images taken by the Chandra Space Telescope in its 25 years so far. Credit: NASA/SAO/CXC

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory Celebrates 25 Years With Impressive Cosmic Images

Since its launch in 1999, Chandra has helped unravel cosmic mysteries, supported the research of thousands of astronomers, and maintained its status as a cornerstone of astrophysical research.
An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has directly imaged an extrasolar planet about 12 light-years from Earth. Although there were hints that the planet existed, it was not confirmed until Webb photographed it. The planet is one of the coldest exoplanets observed so far.

Webb photographs a cold extrasolar planet 12 light years away

The mass of the planet, named Epsilon Indi Ab, is about three times that of Jupiter and it orbits the K-type star Epsilon Indi A, which is about the age of the Sun but is slightly
This "penguin party" is loud. The twisted spiral galaxy in the center, known as the Penguin, and the compact elliptical galaxy to the left, known as the Egg, are in an active embrace. A new near- and mid-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope, taken to mark two years of scientific activity, shows that their interaction is marked by a subtle, inverted U-shaped blue glow. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The Penguin and the Egg: A Living Portrait of Interacting Galaxies to Mark the Second Anniversary of the Webb Space Telescope

Researchers speculate that the penguin had the shape of a spiral. Today, its galactic center shines like an eye, its disordered arms now shaping as a beak, head, spine, and spread tail. The elliptical galaxy that looks like
For the first time, a phenomenon that astronomers had long hoped to photograph directly has been captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam). In this spectacular image of the Serpent Nebula, the discovery is in the northern region of the Young Zone And this star-forming relative NASA, ESA, CSA

Alignment of dipolar jets confirms star formation theories

First-of-its-kind identification of straight jets in spectacular new Webb Space Telescope image
The JADES Deep Field uses observations made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the JADES (JWST Advanced Deep Survey) program. A team of astronomers studying the JADES data identified about 80 objects (circled in green) that changed their brightness over time. Most of these objects, called transients, are the result of exploding stars or supernovae. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JADES Collaboration

The 'Webb' space telescope is a device for detecting supernovae: thanks to it, 10 times more supernovae were observed in the early universe

'Web' discovers 10 times more supernovae in the early universe than were previously known
Artist's impression of a protoplanetary disk. Credit: ESA

The Webb Space Telescope finds an abundance of carbon molecules around a young star

"It's amazing that we can detect and quantify the amount of molecules we know very well on Earth, like benzene, which is actually more than 600 light-years away," said one of the authors of the paper that appeared.
This image of NGC 5468, a galaxy about 130 million light-years from Earth, combines data from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. It is the most distant galaxy in which Hubble has detected variable Cepheid stars. These stars serve as important landmarks for measuring the expansion rate of the universe.

The Webb and Hubble space telescopes confirm the universe's expansion rate, the puzzle continues

Web sightings provide new insights into a decade-long mystery
This artistic concept shows what the extrasolar planet 55 Cancri e might look like. The star, also called Janssen, is a super-Earth, a rocky planet significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, orbiting its star at a distance of only 1.4 million miles (0.015 AU), completing a full orbit in less than 18 hours. (The planet Mercury is 25 times farther from the Sun compared to 55 Cancri e from its star). The system, which also includes four large gaseous planets, is located about 41 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cancer. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralph Crawford (STScI)

Super-Earth secrets: James Webb telescope reveals unexpected atmosphere of extrasolar planet

The gases that cover 55 Cancri e bubble from its interior. The primordial atmosphere has long since disappeared due to the high temperature and intense radiation from the star
An artist's rendering of a Tidal Disruption Event (TDE), a star torn apart by the powerful gravity of a massive black hole. Credit: Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF

Cosmic Archaeology: Using Black Holes to Discover Evidence of the Universe's First Stars

To date there have been no convincing direct detections of Pop III stars - the first stars, because these stars formed in the early universe are very far away and too faint for our ground-based telescopes or
An artist's concept of WASP-107 b shows turbulent atmospheric mixing within the planet's gas mantle. Credit: Roberto Muller Candanosa/Johns Hopkins University NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

The Webb Space Telescope offers the first glimpse into the interior of an extrasolar planet

Methane found in WASP-107 b reveals core mass and stormy sky
Artistic image of the planet Proxima Centauri b'. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

New research investigates the effect of ozone on the climates of extrasolar planets

A team of researchers led by Dr. Assaf Hochman from the Hebrew University revealed the role of ozone in shaping the atmospheric dynamics of Proxima Centauri b. Their findings, derived from advanced models of climate chemistry and advanced theories of
An artist's rendering of the planet SPECULOOS-3 b orbiting its sun. The planet is the size of Earth, while its sun is slightly larger than Jupiter, but much more massive. Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Discovery of an Earth-sized planet orbiting the supercold dwarf star SPECULOOS-3

The SPECULOOS project revealed the existence of an Earth-sized planet around SPECULOOS-3, a nearby star similar in size to Jupiter and twice as cold as our Sun
The galaxy cluster Abel 2744 or the Pandora cluster. The researchers looked at the galaxies behind it. Photograph of the Hubble Space Telescope

The first light in the universe

James Webb Space Telescope observations of galaxies in the young universe revealed that the first light in space came from bright young stars
Artificial color JWST image of a small portion of the GOODS South field, with emphasis on JADES-GS-z7-01-QU. This type of galaxy is extremely rare. Credit: JADES Collaboration

Cosmic Time Runs Back: Webb Space Telescope Discovers 'Dead' Galaxy 13 Billion Years Old

This galaxy experienced a tumultuous and fast life: the star formation process worked quickly and suddenly ended, a situation that is not expected at such an early stage in the evolution of the universe. It is still not clear if the "frozen" state of the galaxy
NGC 5468 — the host galaxy of Cepheid. Joint photograph of the Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes, NASA/ESA

The Webb and Hubble telescopes confirm the rate of expansion of the universe, the puzzle remains

Webb's measurements provide new light on a decade-long mystery known as the Hubble stress - the differences in the age of the universe between the Hubble observations and past observations that remain unexplained * Prof. Adam Rees, winner
thanks for the correction. The corrected translation would be: SwRI scientists used data from the James Webb Space Telescope to model the geothermal processes in the subsurface that may explain how methane reached the surface of Eris and Maki Maki, two dwarf planets in the distant Kuiper Belt. The figure suggests three possibilities, including the likelihood that liquid water exists within these icy bodies at the edge of the solar system, far from the sun's heat. Credit: Southwest Research Institute.

Astronomers reveal surprising activity on the dwarf planets Eris and Maki Maki

The Webb telescope has observed what appear to be young methane deposits on the surface of Eris and Maki Maki
19 spiral galaxies imaged by the Webb Space Telescope. Courtesy of the European Space Agency and NASA

Web shows amazing structures in 19 nearby spiral galaxies

These are relatively close galaxies that face the Earth. The research reveals new details about the way galaxies are formed
long image captionThis is part of the Evolution of the Universe Early Science Survey (CEERS), consisting of several near-infrared points from the NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) camera on the James Webb Space Telescope. These observations are being made in the same region studied by the Hubble Space Telescope, known as the Extended Groth Belt. Arrows showing the directions north and east show the direction of the image in the sky. It should be noted that the relationship between north and east in the sky (as seen from below) is reversed compared to the half directions on the map of the earth (as seen from above). The image shows invisible near-infrared wavelengths converted to visible colors. The color key shows which NIRCam filters were used to collect the light. The name color of each filter is the visible color that represents the infrared light passing through that filter. The barrel ruler is marked with arc-seconds which are a measure of angular distance in the sky. One arc-second is equal to an angular measurement of 1/3600 of one degree. There are 60 arc-minutes in a degree and 60 arc-seconds in an arc-minute. (The full moon has an angular diameter of about 30 arc-minutes.) The actual size of an object that covers one arc-second in the sky depends on its distance from the telescope. Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Steve Finkelstein (University of Texas at Austin)

The James Webb telescope reveals: galaxies in the early universe have a long and flat shape

The first galaxies were much less developed than the spiral and spherical galaxies that exist today, which are actually the result of mergers, both because of the stage of development but also because of the conditions that prevailed at the time
This image from Webb's MIRI (mid-infrared) camera shows the star system Beta Pictoris. A flat disk of dust fragments, formed by collisions between planetesimals (orange), dominates the landscape and is called the "main disk plane". In the lower left corner, Webb showed the true extent of the secondary disk (cyan (turquoise), which is inclined 5 degrees relative to the primary disk. Webb also discovered a previously unseen feature called the "cat's tail." A coronagraph (a black circle and two small disks) was used to block The light of the central star. Scale bar shows that the disks of Beta Peak (pictoris) span hundreds of astronomical units (AU), where one AU is the average distance from Earth to the Sun. (In our solar system, Neptune orbits the Sun at a distance of 30 AU) in this image , light at a wavelength of 15.5 microns is shown in cyan (turquoise) and 23 microns in orange (F1550C and F2300C filters, respectively). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI, C. STARK and K. LAWSON (NASA GSFC), J. KAMMERER (ESO), and M. PERRIN (STSCI).

The Webb Space Telescope discovered a 'cat's tail' made of dust in the Beta Pictoris system

Beta Pictoris is a solar system in the making and relatively close so that the gas disks can be seen. It turns out that Webb was able to discover a structure that was not noticed in photographs with less sensitive instruments, thus he discovered a gas disk
Jupiter (Webb NIRCam image): This image of Jupiter from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) shows spectacular detail of the planet, which is impressive in infrared light. In this image, brightness indicates a high altitude . The many white "dots" and "marks" are likely very high-altitude cloud edges of condensed convection. The auroras, shown in red in this image, extend to higher altitudes over both the planet's north and south poles. In contrast, dark bands north The equatorial region has no cloud caps. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ricardo Huasso (UPV), Imeka de Pater (UC Berkeley), Thierry Fouche (Paris Observatory), Lee Fletcher (University of Leicester), Michael H Wong (UC Berkeley), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Fast and furious: Jupiter's secret jet stream accelerates up to 500 km/h

The James Webb Space Telescope discovered a previously unseen jet stream in Jupiter's atmosphere. Similar phenomena have been observed in Saturn, and both may be related to temperature variations in the atmospheres of the gas giants
Webb's close-up, high-resolution ESA view of Herbig-Haro 211 reveals exquisite details of the young star's jet. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, Tom Ray (Dublin)

Webb photographed supersonic jets from a star of his day

Herbig-harrows are luminous regions surrounding young stars. They form when stellar winds or jets of gas ejected from these stars create shock waves that collide at high speeds with nearby gas and dust.
The Webb Space Telescope photographed the Ring Nebula. On the left using the NIRCam camera and on the right using MIRI. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow, N. Cox, R. Wesson

ווב לוקד את יופייה המפורט של ערפילית הנגעת

The Ring Nebula, formed by a star shedding its outer layers, is a classic example of a planetary nebula and is also relatively close to us.
An artist's impression of the Cassini spacecraft flying through plumes erupting from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. These geysers are very similar to geysers and emit a mixture of water vapor, ice grains, salts, methane and other organic molecules. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Webb Space Telescope discovers a 10,000 km long plume of water erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus

This is the first time that such a water emission has been seen from such a great distance, and in addition, the Web allows researchers a direct view, for the first time, of how this emission feeds the water supply of the entire system of
The galaxy GS-9209. credit g. brammer c. Williams A. carnall, University of Edinburgh

Webb revealed features of a galaxy 25 billion light years away

The galaxy is currently 25 billion light-years away, but when light began to travel from it to us about 12.5 billion years ago, it was much closer, because the universe is expanding
SMACS galaxy cluster. This image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 and its surroundings was the first image released from the James Webb Space Telescope in July 2022. The five close-up images are about 19,000 light-years across and show galaxies as they appeared about 13 billion years ago. Careful analysis of these galaxies reveals that if we cannot resolve the discrepancy, we may greatly underestimate the total mass of its stars. Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI / Giménez-Arteaga et al. (2023), Peter Lorsen (Cosmic Dawn Center).

Astronomers are surprised by the unexpected size of galaxies in the early universe photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope

The first findings from the James Webb space telescope hinted at galaxies so early and massive that they are somewhat inconsistent with our understanding of the formation of structure in the universe. A new study tries to deal with the contradictions
This artist's illustration shows a collision between two bodies of ice and dust orbiting the bright star Pomelhot, 25 light-years away. This may have caused an expanding cloud of very fine dust particles. Credit: ESA, NASA and M. Kornmesser

Webb explores the asteroid belt of the young solar system Pummelhot and discovers evidence of hidden planets

The belts surround the hot young star, which can be seen with the unaided eye as the brightest star in the southern group Southern Pisces. The dust belts are debris from the collisions of larger bodies, corresponding to asteroids and comets,
A star exploding is a dramatic event, but the debris the star leaves behind can be even more dramatic. A new mid-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope provides one stunning example. It shows the remains of the supernova Cassiopeia A (Cas A), created by a stellar explosion 340 years ago. The image shows bright colors and complex structures. Cas A is the youngest known remnant of a massive exploding star in our galaxy, offering astronomers an opportunity to understand the star's death process. Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (UGent), J. DePasquale (STScI)

Let's see how Cassiopeia is doing: Webb reveals new details on the Cassiopeia A supernova

Webb recorded what remained after the death of a star only 11 thousand light years away from us. It is a relatively new supernova - only 350 years old
This infrared imaging from the Web's near infrared wavelength camera (NIRCam) combines data from two 1.4 and 3.0 micron filters, shown here in blue and orange, respectively. The planet shows a blue tint in the image obtained with a representative color. Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI)

The Webb Space Telescope photographed in detail 11 of the rings surrounding Uranus-Uron

The Webb Space Telescope photographed in detail 11 of the rings surrounding Uranus-Uron
The Webb Space Telescope observes NGC 346 (NIRCam Image) Photo: NASA, ESA

The Webb Space Telescope reveals star formation in the dusty bands of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Previous infrared studies of the NGC 346 nebula have focused on stellar embryos heavier than five to eight times the mass of our Sun. With the help of a web, it is possible to reach lighter protostars, very small
The planet LHS 475 b is similar in size to Earth: NASA, ESA, CSA, L. Hustak (STScI)

The Webb Space Telescope has discovered an Earth-sized planet 41 light-years away

However, the conditions there are more reminiscent of Venus than Earth. It orbits a red dwarf in an orbit that lasts only two days * Webb was able to confirm the existence of the planet