Throughout its first year in space, the James Webb Space Telescope exceeded expectations.
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For the Webb mission, the bar couldn’t have been set much higher: more than three decades of development, 10 billion dollars of public investment, specially developed hardware and software, and a novel engineering design that allowed the telescope to unfold like origami while travelling through space. These extensive efforts got Webb to its location in space, 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) from Earth. Once it settled into its orbit, the real work began.
Webb has exceeded the astronomy community’s expectations in every way. The launch and journey to its Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2) was so precise that mission planners confirmed the mission has enough fuel for 20-plus years of operations—double what was initially planned. As teams at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) began aligning Webb’s 18 primary mirror segments, they found the process smoother than they anticipated. In many ways, this is a testament to how well the observatory was constructed, which included extensive, thorough testing. The initial alignment of Webb’s primary mirror was achieved in late February, which soon led to a commissioning image that revealed not only a crisp, bright star, but also dozens of galaxies in the background. Very early in Webb’s six-month commissioning period, it was clear how much detail infrared light is capable of delivering.
Teams worked around the clock from the telescope’s December 25, 2021 launch through mid-July to commission each instrument, and prepare the data-processing pipeline for its science operations. This included preparation of Webb’s first full-color images and data—proof that Webb was working and ready to take us into a new age of astronomy. (Read more about the institute-wide collaboration that led to Webb’s successful commissioning, the release of those images and data on July 12, 2022, and its transition into normal operations in this feature.)
One image, though, came out in a sneak preview on the evening of July 11. United States President Joe Biden presented Webb’s First Deep Field image to the nation during an event attended by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and STScI’s then-Deputy Director Nancy Levenson. It was the deepest image of our universe to date, and went on to be named one of TIME magazine’s 100 photos of the year, gracing the cover of that special issue. TIME also honored Webb’s origami-inspired structure as one of the best designed inventions of the year.
The release of Webb’s first full-color images marked the official start of science operations. Enthusiasm for Webb’s beautiful, long-awaited data flooded through the astronomy community and into the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), where Webb’s first images and data, along with a series of Early Release Science observations, were immediately available to the world. (Eventually, all data from publicly funded telescopes are made available, but astronomers often have an exclusive access period to analyze their project-specific data before it is shared. The reason so much initial data were shared immediately was to allow scientists to become more familiar with and quickly begin analyzing Webb’s data.) The institute’s outreach department started a new Early Highlights blog to keep up with the interest in Webb observations, and worked closely with NASA to communicate the distinctions between peer-reviewed, published discoveries and the fast-paced, excited sharing of news in the age of social media.
Meanwhile, STScI worked to prepare the astronomy community to view and analyze Webb’s data (no longer simulated!), and develop proposals to do their own research with Webb. JWebbinars and high-level science products helped support this goal, along with the First Science Results conference at STScI December 12–15. Hosted only six months after the release of Webb’s first images, the conference welcomed almost 200 scientists on site and over 300 online. It included 50 science talks and more than 100 poster presentations that summarized Webb’s technical performance. Proposals for Cycle 2 of Webb observations are due January 27, 2023, and they will be well-informed by the tireless efforts of STScI staff during Webb’s exhilarating first year.
