James Webb Space Telescope

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have spotted what may be one of the most distant supernovas ever observed, an explosion that lit up when the universe was less than a tenth of its current age. The flash was seen as it appeared just days after the star died, more than 12.5 billion years ago.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has unveiled numerous stars formerly hidden by clouds of dust in the stellar nursery NGC 7129, located about 3,300 light-years from Earth. An image released on Oct. 6, 2026, shows hot atomic hydrogen gas in golden regions and cooler molecular hydrogen gas in red, shocked by embedded protostars.

Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a surprisingly organized weather system on a brown dwarf 20 light-years from Earth, according to a study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The findings suggest that the complex atmosphere of SIMP 0136 is governed largely by temperature changes and the vertical structure of its clouds.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered that the atmosphere of WASP-17b, a giant planet 1,300 light-years from Earth, is noticeably asymmetrical. The bulge on one side, detected using a technique called transmission strings, provides the first direct observational evidence that exoplanet atmospheres can have uneven shapes. The finding, published in Nature Astronomy, closely matches theoretical predictions and offers a three-dimensional view of an alien world's atmospheric structure.