See where the James Webb Space Telescope is in space right now

See a timeline of James Webb Space Telescope discoveries

Since its launch on Christmas Day 2021, NASA's $10B James Webb Space Telescope has captivated the world with its rapid revelations of ancient galaxies, star-formation hotbeds, and more. This regularly updated timeline of Webb's discoveries keeps you up to date with the latest developments.

View a gallery of stunning images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope

While the James Webb telescope collects an astounding amount of scientific data, a major part of its allure is its ability to return stunning, high-resolution images. These images include nearby stars, distant galaxies, and some of the oldest structures in the universe.

James Webb Space Telescope aims to unlock secrets of the early universe

Decades in the making, JWST is designed to study the universe in infrared light, allowing it to see through cosmic dust and observe ancient galaxies, star formation, and potentially life-supporting exoplanets. The Webb will orbit the sun at a stable point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

The twenty-year effort to design the Webb's optics

Since its located 1 million miles from Earth, the Webb space observatory has to be able to repair itself—no Space Shuttles can be dispatched with astronaut engineers to repair it. That's why over two decades teams reiterated, cross-checked, and hyper-optimized the Webb's observing surface. Their efforts produced the world's largest space-based optical surface that is peering billions of years back in time. Learn the wild engineering of the telescope here.

Inside the James Webb's amazing sun shields

The Webb team has stationed its mammoth observatory in solar orbit—and brought its instruments below 40 kelvins (minus 233 ºC). Remarkably, most of the cooling has been done passively, by shielding the telescope from the sun and letting physics take care of the rest.

The James Webb Space Telescope is rewriting what we know about the early universe

Thanks to its advanced infrared sensors and massive mirror, the James Webb Space Telescope can see farther back in cosmic history than Hubble, revealing galaxies formed just 500 million years after the Big Bang.

A real-time 3D-explorer of the solar system

NASA's Eyes on the Solar System allows you to track all kinds of objects in space in real time, from observatories like the James Webb Telescope to all manner of comets and asteroids. Zoom in and out, read up on space missions, and see the solar system from a totally new angle with this incredible interactive site. Jump in here.

Lagrange points offer energy-efficient orbits for telescopes

Lagrange Points are special locations where gravitational forces let spacecraft "park" without constant course corrections, making them ideal for science missions. NASA’s James Webb Telescope uses Lagrange Point 2 to stay aligned with Earth while orbiting the Sun.

Webb Telescope zooms in on Orion Nebula and finds planet pairs

The Webb telescope has trained its infrared cameras on the nearest star-forming nebula in our universe, the Orion Nebula. Its images revealed a never-before-seen phenomenon: dozens of pairs of planet-sized objects in binary orbit, seemingly floating...

The next generation of space-based observatories

How exactly does a space telescope come to be funded by NASA? NASA’s most famous telescopes, like Hubble and James Webb, were once featured in the decadal survey–a once per decade survey run by the National Academy of Science that recommends which projects to support. This article and podcast covers which telescope designs are in contention to be part of NASA’s next generation of space-based observatories.

Atmospheric drag is causing the Hubble Space Telescope to drift toward Earth slowly

Without interventions to boost the observatory to a higher orbit, Hubble is expected to fall to Earth's surface in the mid-2030s. In the meantime, the telescope is expected to continue to be productive by shifting its mode of operation to rely on a single gyroscope, down from three.

Space telescope development was driven by a desire to bypass Earth's atmosphere

The most important figure in the effort to create what would become the Hubble Space Telescope was Lyman Spitzer, who first proposed a telescope in orbit in 1946. The nearly 50-year endeavor led to space-based observatories, which are not limited by Earth's atmosphere absorbing or distorting most wavelengths of light.

James Webb championed both space science and human spaceflight at NASA

As NASA Administrator during the 1960s, Webb prioritized a balanced approach between manned missions and scientific research, fostering advancements in astronomy, robotic exploration, and university involvement. Despite having no background in science or engineering, Webb oversaw more than 75 space science mission.

The Hubble Space Telescope made discoveries within our solar system and across the universe

The observatory helped confirm the presence of water on Jupiter's moon Europa, and uncovered seasonal variations on planets like Uranus. It also observed exoplanets and gravitational lensing, proved the existence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and detected the accelerated expansion of the universe.

New ways of seeing the cosmos have redrawn the map of human identity

From Galileo’s crude spyglass to the James Webb Space Telescope, each technological leap has expanded our observational reach and redefined philosophical and moral conceptions of our place in the universe. Identifying signs of life through the study of exoplanet atmospheres would represent the next great revolution.

The Hubble Space Telescope uses curved mirrors to collect and focus light

Classified as a Cassegrain reflector, the observatory bounces incoming visible light and some infrared and ultraviolet light off a primary mirror with a diameter of 2.4 meters. The reflected light is directed to a secondary mirror, which reflects it through a tiny hole in the primary mirror and onto detectors.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Watch a livestream of Earth from the International Space Station

The feed is made possible by the SpaceTV-1 camera system, which is live over 20 hours a day. Video replays are shown during routine loss of signal communications with the inter-satellite link relaying the video data.

Voyager science teams still collect valuable space data using four active tools

These instruments track magnetic fields, solar wind particles, radio emissions from the heliopause, and hydrogen levels in the outer heliosphere. Even though each Voyager sends data at just 160 bits per second, NASA receives 6–8 hours of tracking data daily.

Is the sun aligned with Stonehenge right now?

Twice a year, during the longest day and night, the sun’s path aligns ever so gently with the ruins of Stonehenge. During the summer solstice, viewers can see the sun’s rise crest the central heel stone. The winter solstice sees the sun set across the site’s altar stone. Use this interactive to tour the historic site and check its current skyscape.

View media of the sun's south pole, taken for the first time in 2025

Captured in March 2025 by the Solar Orbiter—a satellite developed by ESA and NASA—the images and video are the first to be taken by an object not moving around the sun's equator. The orbiter moved outside the plane of the planets by using Venus to slingshot it into a tilted orbit, and the data it collected will help scientists better understand the sun's magnetic activity.

Who’s in space right now?

Hundreds of people (and a few animals) have been to space since the first creatures flew past the Kármán line in 1947. There are a handful of astronauts aboard the International Space Station at any time, while others may be cresting space in...

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Explaining why the Earth wobbles

Astronomers going back to Hipparchus in the 2nd century BCE have noticed our planet has a distinct wobble. More recently, scientists have observed that the Earth is 26 miles wider at the equator than from pole to pole. The wobble results from our...

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

A comet's tails point away from the sun, rather than trailing its motion

The ion tail, composed of gases ionized by solar radiation and pushed by the solar wind, points away from the sun. In contrast, the dust tail is pushed away by radiative pressure and curves away from the comet's motion. As the comet approaches the sun, both tails get longer.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

In 2018, SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster into heliocentric orbit for publicity

As of February 2023, the vehicle and its mannequin driver—dubbed "Starman"—have completed three and a quarter revolutions around the sun. One paper estimated that the car has a 22% chance of crashing into Earth within the next 15 million years.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Watch what the Ebola virus does inside our cells and organs in order to spread and survive.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.