James Webb Space Telescope resumes science operations after glitch

MIRI mechanism issue On August 24, Webb engineers discovered that a grating wheel mechanism which supports the telescope’s “medium-resolution spectroscopy” (MRS) mode was showing signs of increased friction. The wheel is only used for one of the telescope’s four modes, which includes imaging, low-resolution spectroscopy, coronagraphic imaging and MRS. After preliminary health checks and investigations, […]

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Webb captures ‘unprecedented’ image of galaxies merging near supermassive black hole

According to Johns Hopkins University, this image offers an “unprecedented opportunity to observe how billions of years ago galaxies coalesced into the modern universe.” “We think something dramatic is about to happen in these systems. The galaxy is at this perfect moment in its lifetime, about to transform and look entirely different in a few […]

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James Webb Space Telescope captures curious concentric rings in space

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope continues to reveal images that give a look at the distant universe. The latest is an image of concentric dust rings emitted by a pair of stars, which are over 5,000 light years away from Earth. The pair is collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140 and Webb Space telescope captures the […]

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James Webb Space Telescope captures clearest view of Neptune’s rings in decades

NASA released a James Webb Space Telescope image that captured Neptune and its rings. This is the clearest image of the icy planet and its ring since the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by it in 1989. Apart from Neptune’s several bright, narrow rings, the Webb image also shows Neptune’s fainter dust bands. “It has been […]

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James Webb Space Telescope runs into technical issue

NASA scientists have observed a technical problem with the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) instrument. Since its launch, the Webb telescope has been offering scientists unprecedented views into the universe beyond our planet, the most recent of which was the telescope’s first images and spectra of Mars. The space agency has convened an […]

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James Webb Space Telescope takes its first images and spectra of Mars

The European Space Agency (ESA) released the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) first images and infrared spectrum of Mars. The Webb telescope captured its first images and spectra of the red planet on September 5, 2022. Webb is situated approximately 1.5 million kilometres away from our planet at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2). From […]

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Space news weekly recap: Blue Origin rocket crash, diamonds in a meteorite, and more

Last week, we were reminded that spaceflight is still hard when Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin’s rocket crashed back to Earth shortly after launch. Fortunately, no one was aboard the spacecraft and nobody was injured during the mishap. Read more about the crash and other interesting news on our weekly space news recap. Blue Origin rocket […]

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James Webb Space Telescope captures Orion nebula and its young, hot, massive stars

James Webb Space Telescope captured this image of the Orion nebula young stars cocooned by disks of gas and dust. The image is actually a composite of several filters which represent emissions from ionised gas, hydrocarbons, molecular gas, dust and scattered starlight. It was released by the PDSRs4ALL international team of astronomers. The full image […]

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James Webb Space Telescope captures image of near-perfect ‘Einstein ring’

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured an image of an almost perfect “Einstein ring.” An Einstein ring is a ring of light created when light from a galaxy, star or other light-emitting cosmic objects passes near a massive object before it reaches the Earth, or in this case, the Webb telescope. When this happens, […]

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5 important things to see in NASA’s James Webb Telescope images

NASA has revealed the first set of images from the new James Webb Space Telescope, revealing the universe’s beauty at an unprecedented scale. The images showed the birthplaces of stars and the “cosmic dance” orchestrated by galaxies with supermassive black holes within them to the last gasps of a dying star. Here are 5 important […]

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