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The Wow Factor

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A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper-left corner of the image is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right, at the same angle. The center of the image is filled with mostly blue gas. At the center, there is one particularly bright star, that has an hourglass shadow above and below it. To the right of that is what looks like a vertical eye-shaped crevice with a bright star at the center. The gas to the right of the crevice is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field, brightest sources in the field have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of the James Webb Space Telescope.

STScI staff continued to facilitate revolutionary science with Webb, going beyond previous boundaries of knowledge, efficiency, and excellence.

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Throughout 2024, researchers around the world continued to make new discoveries with the James Webb Space Telescope, amazing its international community of followers. At the same time, staff at the institute remained focused on improving Webb’s operations and facilitating more exciting science.

Webb continued to expand the frontiers of the observable universe, confirming a galaxy that existed within the universe’s first 300 million years — beating the oldest galaxy known prior to Webb by over 100 million years. That distant galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0, relates to questions Webb is raising about the early universe, specifically how the galaxies and their black holes became so massive and bright so quickly.

Proposals to Use Webb Break Records

In addition to fulfilling its promise of revealing the early universe, Webb has opened new areas of research across all subfields of astronomy, from planetary science to galaxy evolution. Requests to use Webb broke records in Cycles 3 and 4, with a notable increase of early career researchers submitting proposals that were accepted. These record-breaking numbers led to more publications across all science subject areas. In 2024, 760 peer-reviewed science papers were published based on Webb data.

At the beginning of the year, the institute coordinated Webb’s proposal selection, involving about 600 reviewers from the astronomical and planetary science communities, to assess researchers’ requests to observe with Webb during Cycle 3. Over two weeks, the reviewers selected the most scientifically meaningful proposals, which requested approximately 48,000 hours of Webb time, awarding 5,500 hours.

The process will be improved for the next round. In August, the Cycle 4 call for proposals included newly defined science categories such as galaxies that existed in the very early universe — which was the most popular — exoplanet atmospheres, and stars and stellar populations.

Arp 142, two interacting galaxies, observed in near- and mid-infrared light. At left is NGC 2937, nicknamed the Egg. Its center is the brighter and whiter. There are six diffraction spikes atop its gauzy blue layers. At right is NGC 2936, nicknamed the Penguin. Its beak-like region points toward and above the Egg. Where the eye would be is a small, opaque yellow spiral. The Penguin’s distorted arms form the bird’s beak, back, and tail. The tail is wide and layered, like a beta fish’s tail. A semi-transparent blue hue traces the Penguin and extends from the galaxy, creating an upside-down U over top of both galaxies. At top right is another galaxy seen from the side, pointing roughly at a 45-degree angle. It is largely light blue. Its length appears approximately as long as the Egg’s height. One foreground star with large, bright blue diffraction spikes appears over top of the galaxy and another near it. The entire black background is filled with tiny, extremely distant galaxies.
Arp 142, a pair of interacting galaxies nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg, marked Webb’s second year of science operations. This image shows the combined near- and mid-infrared light captured by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument).
A field of thousands of small galaxies of various shapes and colors on the black background of space. A bright foreground star with diffraction spikes is at lower left. Near image center, a tiny white box outlines a region and two diagonal lines lead to a larger box in upper right, enlarging the view of this area. Within the box is a banana-shaped blob that is blueish-red in one half and distinctly red in the other half. An arrow points to the redder portion and is labeled “JADES GS z 14 – 0.”
In 2024, Webb confirmed that the distant galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0 existed within the universe’s first 300 million years. This finding by the telescope beat the oldest galaxy known prior to Webb by over 100 million years.

Identifying Time for More Science

In the summer, the institute’s director greenlit an ambitious multi-year Director’s Discretionary program to investigate the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. The Rocky Worlds program will devote 500 hours of Webb observing time — along with 250 orbits from the Hubble Space Telescope — to search for atmospheres around terrestrial-mass exoplanets in more than a dozen nearby low-mass star systems. By the end of 2024, an external science advisory committee for the program was established, and the first two targets were selected from a list of potential exoplanets that had been assembled for the astronomy community’s consideration.

With so much excitement among researchers and the public, along with the continued demand for Webb, the institute knows that every hour the telescope spends observing celestial targets counts. Staff’s continuous dedication to refining its processes led to many improvements in its performance and efficiency, including aligning the observatory’s mirrors so effectively that no corrections were needed for six months. As a consequence, the frequency of mirror checks decreased, making more of Webb’s time available for scientific observations.

Still in the early phase of its mission, Webb is not just making discoveries but inspiring new questions that will guide astronomy for years to come. From galactic evolution and our solar system’s moons to identifying the chemical makeup of exoplanets’ atmospheres and mysterious “little red dots” that had everyone speculating this year, Webb continues to amaze. 

A color-coded pie chart showing the percentages of proposals received for Webb Cycle 4 by subject matter. Nineteen percent to high-z galaxies, 16 percent to exoplanet atmospheres, 16 percent to stars and stellar populations, 12 percent to exoplanet systems, 11 percent to nearby galaxies, 11 percent to supermassive black holes, nine percent to gas, dust and the interstellar medium, and six percent to the solar system.
Webb is in high demand. This pie chart breaks down the subjects covered in astronomers’ proposals to use Webb that were submitted in Cycle 4.

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