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2023 Annual Report

The long horizontal is split into five sections. From left to right: Hubble image of NGC 1333 shows colors ranging from blue at the top to gold in the middle and red at the bottom. An all-sky mosaic from TESS shows a grid-like combination of images in black and white with a bright white arc from top left extending to bottom center, and a few white splotches elsewhere. Webb image of Rho Ophiuchi shows red dual opposing jets coming from young stars in the top half, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. An illustration represents the Roman Space Telescope, showing a tilted yellow galaxy core at center surrounded by blue spiral arms flowing counterclockwise. A transparent light blue section covers the left side, with a keyhole at the bottom. Two people stand at bottom left. At far right, the cover is deep blue and includes text, ’23 in review, at center, and the Space Telescope Science Institute logo at bottom right.

Featured Articles

Letter from the Interim Director
Dr. Nancy Levenson reflects on Hubble and Webb’s scientific discoveries, Roman’s milestones, and shares details about two new large observing programs.

Building an Ultraviolet Legacy 
Hubble team members reflect on the completion of one of the telescope’s most ambitious observation programs and the impact it’s already having in astronomy. 

One for the Record Books 
The institute and astronomy community began shifting from the thrill of Webb’s beginnings to the new reality of a successfully operating science mission. 

Charting a Course for the Cloud 
Building software for Roman’s Science Operations Center is a balance between innovating and borrowing from existing systems. 

For the People
Our archive staff saw an increased adoption of the accessible tools and search forms they now regularly release, lowering barriers to research and accelerating discovery. 

In Search of Habitable Worlds
Staff in STScI’s Russell B. Makidon Optics Laboratory are actively advancing instruments designed to find and study Earth-like planets. 

Shifting to a Faster Tempo
Our engineers have fine-tuned data processing, evoking a chord of speed and efficiency. 

In the News
Hubble and Webb made headlines throughout the year. 

Research at the Forefront 
The wide array of peer-reviewed articles by our staff and their collaborators contribute to a growing body of research that supports the institute’s operations and the worldwide astronomy community. 

Sharing Our Universe 
Our multi-disciplinary public engagement staff worked together to create new, accessible products and host events for the public. 

‘Ordinary’ Champions 
Mentorships help our staff develop a greater sense of belonging and cultivate work satisfaction, positively influencing the institute’s culture. 

By the Numbers 
Demand to use the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes remains high.

Meet Our Staff 
Jenn Kotler designs products that give researchers freedom and control, no matter how they access the content, and Jonathan Cecil works alongside a team to regularly assess and upgrade our office buildings. 

 

Download a Large-Scale Poster 

About the Annual Report Archive

Annual Report Archive

Want to know more about the institute’s missions, divisions, and initiatives? Filter by topic, year, or keyword to explore the institute’s accomplishments since 1999.

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  1. Letter from the Interim Director

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Dr. Nancy Levenson reflects on Hubble and Webb’s scientific discoveries, Roman’s milestones, and shares details about two new large observing programs. 

    Head-and-shoulders portrait of STScI’s Interim Director Nancy Levenson, a white woman with short brown hair and blue eyes, who is smiling at the camera. She is dressed in a formal black jacket and scoop neck top. The background is a portion of Hubble's image of Westerlund 2, a giant cluster of thousands of stars.

  2. Building an Ultraviolet Legacy

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Hubble team members reflect on the completion of one of the telescope’s most ambitious observation programs and the impact it’s already having in astronomy.

    A horizontal image with colors ranging from blue at left to golden in the middle and red at the right. On the left, a bright blue star is illuminating surrounding clouds of gas, making the left third of the image appear blue. To the right of the bright star, a couple dozen fainter stars shine yellow. One of them has a fuzzy, golden arc above. At the center of the image, a brighter yellow star illuminates surrounding gas. It is partially obscured by dark streaks and clouds of dust, making it resemble the moon on a cloudy evening. The right side is noticeably darker than the rest, with the exception of a dramatic splash of red almost like a bug splat on a windshield. A handful of faint red stars also appear there.

  3. One for the Record Books

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    The institute and astronomy community began shifting from the thrill of Webb’s beginnings to the new reality of a successfully operating science mission.

    Webb’s view of the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex. Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center.

  4. Charting a Course for the Cloud

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Building software for Roman’s Science Operations Center is a balance between innovating and borrowing from existing systems.

    An illustration shows the Roman Space Telescope at the center, pointing left and set against the black background of space with small circular stars appearing throughout. Four boxes that look like windows with deep window sills appear around the telescope. At their centers are white illustrations. The top left box shows an illustration of two planets, with orbits drawn, moving around a star. The bottom left shows several stars in a variety of sizes, each with four diffraction spikes. The top right shows a spiral galaxy with arms moving clockwise, and a few white dots at the outer areas of the arms. The bottom right box includes only a question mark.

  5. For the People

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Our archive staff saw an increased adoption of the accessible tools and search forms they now regularly release, lowering barriers to research and accelerating discovery.

    Two side-by-side images from the Hubble Space Telescope showing dozens of galaxies of different colors, shapes, and sizes. At the center of each image is a cluster of galaxies within a ghostly blue light. The image on the left shows several yellow-orange blob-like galaxies, each of which is surrounded in a blue halo toward the center. Some of the halos overlap with indistinct boundaries and some appear to abut against each other. They appear in a short, angled line. The image on the right shows two elongated blueish-colored irregularly shaped objects and several small yellow-orange blob-like galaxies in the cluster. Between the two elongated objects is a bright spot surrounded by a blue halo, which is oval in shape and encompasses one of the elongated objects, part of the other, and a few of the orange galaxies.

  6. In Search of Habitable Worlds

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Staff in STScI’s Russell B. Makidon Optics Laboratory are actively advancing instruments designed to find and study Earth-like planets.

    The scene from the Voyager 1 spacecraft, referred to as the Pale Blue Dot, is lit from below by the Sun, which is not in the frame. The top of the view is darker blue. Light blue streaks of light reach from the bottom until about the middle. There’s a prominent, but slightly angled vertical ray of light toward the middle. Within it, toward the top, is a tiny white dot, which is Earth.

  7. Shifting to a Faster Tempo

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Our engineers have fine-tuned data processing, evoking a chord of speed and efficiency.

    Hundreds of thousands of stars are crowded together. A dark brown semi-transparent cloud appears roughly along the left diagonal. This is interstellar dust. Here, stars appear more orange. The stars toward the right are bluish-white. The image is sprinkled with larger, bright blue foreground stars. There is also a smattering of bright red giant stars across the image. Beyond the busy scene of stars, the background of space is black.

  8. In the News

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Hubble and Webb made headlines throughout the year.

    At the center is a thin horizontal pinkish cloud known as Herbig-Haro 211 that is uneven with rounded ends, and tilted from bottom left to top right. It takes up about two-thirds of the length of the left side, but is thinner and longer at the opposite angle. At its center is a dark spot. On either side of the dark spot, there are orangish-yellow wisps that extend to light blue wisps. Within the center of those clouds, a pink fluffy streak runs through each lobe. At the ends of each lobe, pink becomes the dominant color. The lobe to the left is fatter. The right lobe is thinner, and ends in a smaller pink semi-circle. Just off the edge of this lobe is a slightly smaller pink semicircle, then a pink sponge-like blob.

  9. Research at the Forefront

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    The wide array of peer-reviewed articles by our staff and their collaborators contribute to a growing body of research that supports the institute’s operations and the worldwide astronomy community.

    Cassiopeia A, a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure. The inner shell is made of bright pink and orange filaments studded with clumps and knots that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. Around the exterior of the inner shell, particularly at the upper right, there are curtains of wispy gas that look like campfire smoke. The white smoke-like material also appears to fill the cavity of the inner shell, featuring structures shaped like large bubbles. Around and within the nebula, there are various stars seen as points of blue and white light. Outside the nebula, there are also clumps of yellow dust, with a particularly large clump at the bottom right corner that appears to have very detailed striations.

  10. Sharing Our Universe

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Our multi-disciplinary public engagement staff worked together to create new, accessible products and host events for the public.

    A wide view that shows a room’s walls and floor covered in projections of an artistic interpretation of the James Webb Space Telescope’s view of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula. Undulating lines look like they are tracing mountain ridges along the walls and ceiling, and these orangish cloudy formations vary in density and range from translucent to opaque. Toward the top of the walls, and more toward the right, the scene is filled with deep blues, and speckled with stars of many sizes. At left is a door where there appear to be other brightly lit screens in another room. A few people are seated on the floor at left in the main room. Toward the center are five people, some sitting and some standing. The three to the right are presenting to the crowd. Two TV monitors, located to the left and right of the speakers, showcase two images of a star-forming region known as the Pillars of Creation. The leftmost image shows the Pillars of Creation taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, while the rightmost shows the Pillars of Creation taken by Webb.

  11. ‘Ordinary’ Champions

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Mentorships help our staff develop a greater sense of belonging and cultivate work satisfaction, positively influencing the institute’s culture.

    Five people appear throughout this illustration. To the left is a light complexioned man in a suit and tie sitting at a desk with a laptop and a coffee cup. At center are two people interacting. A dark complexioned woman with long hair is standing, holding a notebook, and wearing a blue-green shirt and blue pants. She is facing right toward a large poster. A lighter complexioned man stands to the poster's right. He appears to be explaining the graphs shown on the poster. At right is a man with a medium brown complexion and a beard wearing a yellow shirt and blue pants. He is facing a woman seen from the back sitting at a desk on a roller chair. She is wearing a pink long-sleeved top and a blue skirt, and has a lighter complexion. She is in front of a laptop. They are both touching a sheet of paper. In the background, a trail of small, blue star icons starts at left and loops toward the top before it flows to the right, connecting the people at far left and right. Stars and planets also appear along the top.

  12. By the Numbers

    2023 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Demand to use the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes remains high.

    By the Numbers

  13. Letter from the Interim Director

    2022 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Dr. Nancy Levenson marks the beginning of Webb’s operations, Hubble’s ongoing discoveries, Roman’s milestones, and underlines how our staff continues to support the astronomical community.

    Head-and-shoulders portrait of STScI’s Interim Director Nancy Levenson, a white woman with short brown hair and blue eyes, who is smiling at the camera. She is dressed in a formal black jacket and scoop neck top. The background is a portion of Webb’s composite image of the Pillars of Creation, a region of gas and dust. A peak appears at left and gray areas stretch from center toward the top right. The background has several bright yellow-and-green stars with Webb’s signature eight-point diffraction spikes to the top left, near her eyes, and at bottom right, near her shoulder.

  14. All In

    2022 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    A behind-the-scenes account of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first year.

    Thousands of small galaxies appear across this view of SMACS 0723 from the James Webb Space Telescope. Their colors vary. Some are shades of orange, while others are white. Most appear as fuzzy ovals, but a few have distinct spiral arms. In front of the galaxies are several foreground stars. Most appear blue, and the bright stars have diffraction spikes, forming an eight-pointed star shape. There are also many thin, long, orange arcs that curve around the center of the image.

  15. The Future Is Here

    2022 ANNUAL REPORT ARTICLE

    Throughout its first year in space, the James Webb Space Telescope exceeded expectations.

    Image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The largest star appears larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys, an appearance similar to a mountain range.