James Webb Space Telescope

NASA has completed a milestone test of the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) sunshield, which will protect the flagship observatory from the Sun’s radiation as it unravels the secrets of the cosmos.

The final pieces have fallen into place for NASA’s next generation orbiting observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope.

​​A team of scientists from Cornell University has created a reference catalog detailing the “light-fingerprints” of worlds orbiting our Sun, in the hope that it will help future telescopes to uncover the true natures of distant exoplanets.

​​NASA has announced yet another delay for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), following the publication of a report from the Independent Review Board (IRB) set up to assess the progress of the project in the wake of multiple setbacks.

The launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been delayed once again, with a new window set for May 2020. The next-generation space telescope had previously been set to launch into orbit atop an Ariane 5 rocket from ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, in the Spring of 2019.

​The search for extraterrestrial life has shifted gears over the last five years or so, and is unlikely to slow down as NASA prepares to unleash a couple of powerful new exoplanet-hunting tools, starting with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) set for launch in April.

It's been a long journey for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Almost two decades in the making, the world's largest space telescope to be has edged closer to the launchpad, passing a series of cryogenic tests designed to simulate the harsh space environment.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope hasn't even reached the launch pad and it's already getting its first job orders. The internationally-developed, multi-billion-dollar instrument has been assigned 13 "early release" programs designed to study a wide variety of phenomena.

As part of the instrument's extensive cryogenic testing, NASA engineers had the giant Webb Space Telescope snap a selfie to test the alignment of the individual primary mirror segments and how they interact with the spacecraft's intricate optical systems.

​​There is still so much to learn out about the TRAPPIST-1 system. One question on everybody's lips concerns the chances of liquid water, something scientists are now able to shed more light on thanks to fresh observations from the Hubble Space Telescope.​

​​NASA officials have announced some of the first targets to be observed by the much-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) following its launch atop an Ariane 5 rocket, which is slated for lift-off in October 2018.

With mighty aspirations comes a need for mighty rockets. That was theme of the "Heavy Lift" panel that took the stage at the 33rd annual Space Symposium in Colorado today and New Atlas was on hand to find out more about space telescopes, the Blue Moon project and the "tyranny of the fairing."