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Webb Finds Early Galaxies Weren’t Too Big for Their Britches After All
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By Space Force
Second Lt. Katherine Hendl escorted the remains of her great-great-uncle, a U.S. Army Air Forces gunner killed in action during World War II, home to Massachusetts nearly 80 years after he was declared missing in action.
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By NASA
What does it take to gaze through time to our universe’s very first stars and galaxies?
NASA answers this question in its new documentary, “Cosmic Dawn: The Untold Story of the James Webb Space Telescope.” The agency’s original documentary, which chronicles the story of the most powerful telescope ever deployed in space, was released Wednesday, June 11.
Cosmic Dawn offers an unprecedented glimpse into the delicate assembly, rigorous testing, and triumphant launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The documentary showcases the complexity involved in creating a telescope capable of peering billions of years into the past.
Cosmic Dawn is now available for streaming on NASA’s YouTube, NASA+, and select local theaters. The trailer is available on NASA+ and YouTube.
Relive the pitfalls and the triumphs of the world’s most powerful space telescope—from developing the idea of an impossible machine to watching with bated breath as it unfolded, hurtling through space a million miles away from Earth. Watch the Documentary on YouTube The film features never-before-seen footage captured by the Webb film crew, offering intimate access to the challenges and triumphs faced by the team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland — the birthplace of Webb.
“At NASA, we’re thrilled to share the untold story of our James Webb Space Telescope in our new film ‘Cosmic Dawn,’ celebrating not just the discoveries, but the extraordinary people who made it all happen, for the benefit of humanity,” said Rebecca Sirmons, head of NASA+ at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.
From its vantage point more than a million miles from Earth and a massive sunshield to block the light of our star, Webb’s First Deep Field the deepest and sharpest infrared images of the universe that the world had seen.
Webb’s images have dazzled people around the globe, capturing the very faint light of the first stars and galaxies that formed more than 13.5 billion years ago. These are baby pictures from an ancient past when the first objects were turning on and emitting light after the Big Bang. Webb has also given us new insights into black holes, planets both inside and outside of our own solar system, and many other cosmic phenomena.
Webb was a mission that was going to be spectacular whether that was good or bad — if it failed or was successful. It was always going to make history
Sophia roberts
NASA Video Producer
NASA’s biggest and most powerful space telescope was also its most technically complicated to build. It was harder still to deploy, with more than 300 critical components that had to deploy perfectly. The risks were high in this complicated dance of engineering, but the rewards were so much higher.
“Webb was a mission that was going to be spectacular whether that was good or bad — if it failed or was successful,” said video producer Sophia Roberts, who chronicled the five years preceding Webb’s launch. “It was always going to make history.”
NASA scientists like Nobel Laureate Dr. John Mather conceived Webb to look farther and deeper into origins of our universe using cutting edge infrared technology and massive mirrors to collect incredibly rich information about our universe, from the light of the first galaxies to detailed images of planets in our own solar system.
To achieve this goal, NASA and its partners faced unprecedented hurdles.
Webb’s development introduced questions that no one had asked before. How do you fit a telescope with the footprint of a tennis court into a rocket? How do you clean 18 sensitive mirrors when a single scratch could render them inoperable? How do you maintain critical testing while hurricane stormwater pours through ceilings?
A technician inspects the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirrors at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.NASA/Sophia Roberts Cosmic Dawn captures 25 years of formidable design constraints, high-stake assessments, devastating natural disasters, a global pandemic and determined individuals who would let none of that get in the way of getting this monumental observatory to its rightful place in the cosmos.
“There was nothing easy about Webb at all,” said Webb project manager Bill Ochs. “I don’t care what aspect of the mission you looked at.”
Viewers will experience a one-of-a-kind journey as NASA and its partners tackle these dilemmas — and more — through ingenuity, teamwork, and unbreakable determination.
“The inspiration of trying to discover something — to build something that’s never been built before, to discover something that’s never been known before — it keeps us going,” Mather said. “We are pleased and privileged in our position here at NASA to be able to carry out this [purpose] on behalf of the country and the world.”
Bound by NASA’s 66-year commitment to document and share its work with the public, Cosmic Dawn details every step toward Webb’s launch and science results.
Learn more at nasa.gov/cosmicdawn By Laine Havens,
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Katie Konans,
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jun 11, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Webb’s First Images Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 5 Min Read NASA’s Webb ‘UNCOVERs’ Galaxy Population Driving Cosmic Renovation
White diamonds show the locations of 20 of the 83 young, low-mass, starburst galaxies found in infrared images of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Full image and description shown below. Credits:
NASA/ESA/CSA/Bezanson et al. 2024 and Wold et al. 2025 Astronomers using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have identified dozens of small galaxies that played a starring role in a cosmic makeover that transformed the early universe into the one we know today.
“When it comes to producing ultraviolet light, these small galaxies punch well above their weight,” said Isak Wold, an assistant research scientist at Catholic University of America in Washington and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Our analysis of these tiny but mighty galaxies is 10 times more sensitive than previous studies, and shows they existed in sufficient numbers and packed enough ultraviolet power to drive this cosmic renovation.”
Wold discussed his findings Wednesday at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska. The study took advantage of existing imaging collected by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument, as well as new observations made with its NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument.
Image A: Webb search finds dozens of tiny, young star-forming galaxies
Symbols mark the locations of young, low-mass galaxies bursting with new stars when the universe was about 800 million years old. Using a filter sensitive to such galaxies, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope imaged them with the help of a natural gravitational lens created by the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744. In all, 83 young galaxies were found, but only the 20 shown here (white diamonds) were selected for deeper study. The inset zooms into one of the galaxies.
Download high-resolution images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio NASA/ESA/CSA/Bezanson et al. 2024 and Wold et al. 2025 The tiny galaxies were discovered by Wold and his Goddard colleagues, Sangeeta Malhotra and James Rhoads, by sifting through Webb images captured as part of the UNCOVER (Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam ObserVations before the Epoch of Reionization) observing program, led by Rachel Bezanson at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
The project mapped a giant galaxy cluster known as Abell 2744, nicknamed Pandora’s cluster, located about 4 billion light-years away in the southern constellation Sculptor. The cluster’s mass forms a gravitational lens that magnifies distant sources, adding to Webb’s already considerable reach.
Image B: Galaxy cluster helps reveal young, low-mass galaxies bursting with stars
White diamonds show the locations of 20 of the 83 young, low-mass, starburst galaxies found in infrared images of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744. This composite incorporates images taken through three NIRCam filters (F200W as blue, F410M as green, and F444W as red). The F410M filter is highly sensitive to light emitted by doubly ionized oxygen — oxygen atoms that have been stripped of two electrons — at a time when reionization was well underway. Emitted as green light, the glow was stretched into the infrared as it traversed the expanding universe over billions of years. The cluster’s mass acts as a natural magnifying glass, allowing astronomers to see these tiny galaxies as they were when the universe was about 800 million years old. NASA/ESA/CSA/Bezanson et al. 2024 and Wold et al. 2025 For much of its first billion years, the universe was immersed in a fog of neutral hydrogen gas. Today, this gas is ionized — stripped of its electrons. Astronomers, who refer to this transformation as reionization, have long wondered which types of objects were most responsible: big galaxies, small galaxies, or supermassive black holes in active galaxies. As one of its main goals, NASA’s Webb was specifically designed to address key questions about this major transition in the history of the universe.
Recent studies have shown that small galaxies undergoing vigorous star formation could have played an outsized role. Such galaxies are rare today, making up only about 1% of those around us. But they were abundant when the universe was about 800 million years old, an epoch astronomers refer to as redshift 7, when reionization was well underway.
The team searched for small galaxies of the right cosmic age that showed signs of extreme star formation, called starbursts, in NIRCam images of the cluster.
“Low-mass galaxies gather less neutral hydrogen gas around them, which makes it easier for ionizing ultraviolet light to escape,” Rhoads said. “Likewise, starburst episodes not only produce plentiful ultraviolet light — they also carve channels into a galaxy’s interstellar matter that helps this light break out.”
Image C: A deeper look into small, young, star-forming galaxies during reionization
At left is an enlarged infrared view of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 with three young, star-forming galaxies highlighted by green diamonds. The center column shows close-ups of each galaxy, along with their designations, the amount of magnification provided by the cluster’s gravitational lens, their redshifts (shown as z — all correspond to a cosmic age of about 790 million years), and their estimated mass of stars. At right, measurements from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRSpec instrument confirm that the galaxies produce strong emission in the light of doubly ionized oxygen (green bars), indicating vigorous star formation is taking place. NASA/ESA/CSA/Bezanson et al. 2024 and Wold et al. 2025 The astronomers looked for strong sources of a specific wavelength of light that signifies the presence of high-energy processes: a green line emitted by oxygen atoms that have lost two electrons. Originally emitted as visible light in the early cosmos, the green glow from doubly ionized oxygen was stretched into the infrared as it traversed the expanding universe and eventually reached Webb’s instruments.
This technique revealed 83 small starburst galaxies as they appear when the universe was 800 million years old, or about 6% of its current age of 13.8 billion years. The team selected 20 of these for deeper inspection using NIRSpec.
“These galaxies are so small that, to build the equivalent stellar mass of our own Milky Way galaxy, you’d need from 2,000 to 200,000 of them,” Malhotra said. “But we are able to detect them because of our novel sample selection technique combined with gravitational lensing.”
Image D: Tiny but mighty galaxy helped clear cosmic fog
One of the most interesting galaxies of the study, dubbed 41028 (the green oval at center), has an estimated stellar mass of just 2 million Suns — comparable to the masses of the largest star clusters in our own Milky Way galaxy. NASA/ESA/CSA/Bezanson et al. 2024 and Wold et al. 2025 Similar types of galaxies in the present-day universe, such as green peas, release about 25% of their ionizing ultraviolet light into surrounding space. If the low-mass starburst galaxies explored by Wold and his team release a similar amount, they can account for all of the ultraviolet light needed to convert the universe’s neutral hydrogen to its ionized form.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
By Francis Reddy
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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By NASA
At COSI’s Big Science Celebration on Sunday, May 4, 2025, a young visitor uses one of NASA Glenn Research Center’s virtual reality headsets to immerse herself in a virtual environment. Credit: NASA/Lily Hammel NASA’s Glenn Research Center joined the Center for Science and Industry (COSI) Big Science Celebration on the museum’s front lawn in Columbus, Ohio, on May 4. This event centered on science activities by STEM professionals, researchers, and experts from Central Ohio — and despite chilly, damp weather, it drew more than 20,000 visitors.
At COSI’s Big Science Celebration on Sunday, May 4, 2025, a young visitor steps out of the rain and into NASA Glenn Research Center’s booth to check out the Graphics and Visualization Lab’s augmented reality fluid flow table that allows users to virtually explore a model of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Lily Hammel NASA’s 10-by-80-foot tent housed a variety of information booths and hands-on demonstrations to introduce guests to the vital research being performed at the Cleveland center. Popular attractions included a mini wind tunnel and multiple augmented and virtual reality demonstrations. Visitors also engaged through tangram puzzles and a cosmic selfie station. NASA Glenn’s astronaut mascot made several appearances to the delight of young and old alike.
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By NASA
Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Webb’s First Images Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 6 Min Read Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA’s Webb
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) A planetary system described as abnormal, chaotic, and strange by researchers has come into clearer view with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), researchers have successfully imaged one of two known planets surrounding the star 14 Herculis, located 60 light-years away from Earth in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The exoplanet, 14 Herculis c, is one of the coldest imaged to date. While there are nearly 6,000 exoplanets that have been discovered, only a small number of those have been directly imaged, most of those being very hot (think hundreds or even thousands of degrees Fahrenheit). The new data suggests 14 Herculis c, which weighs about 7 times the planet Jupiter, is as cool as 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3 degrees Celsius).
Image: 14 Herculis c (NIRCam)
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) The team’s results covering 14 Herculis c have been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and were presented in a press conference Tuesday at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska.
“The colder an exoplanet, the harder it is to image, so this is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared,” said William Balmer, co-first author of the new paper and graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. “We are now able to add to the catalog of not just hot, young exoplanets imaged, but older exoplanets that are far colder than we’ve directly seen before Webb.”
Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c also provides insights into a planetary system unlike most others studied in detail with Webb and other ground- and space-based `observatories. The central star, 14 Herculis, is almost Sun-like – it is similar in age and temperature to our own Sun, but a little less massive and cooler.
There are two planets in this system – 14 Herculis b is closer to the star, and covered by the coronagraphic mask in the Webb image. These planets don’t orbit each other on the same plane like our solar system. Instead, they cross each other like an ‘X’, with the star being at the center. That is, the orbital planes of the two planets are inclined relative to one another at an angle of about 40 degrees. The planets tug and pull at one another as they orbit the star.
This is the first time an image has ever been snapped of an exoplanet in such a mis-aligned system.
Scientists are working on several theories for just how the planets in this system got so “off track.” One of the leading concepts is that the planets scattered after a third planet was violently ejected from the system early in its formation.
“The early evolution of our own solar system was dominated by the movement and pull of our own gas giants,” added Balmer. “They threw around asteroids and rearranged other planets. Here, we are seeing the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene. It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own solar system, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces.”
Understanding the Planet’s Characteristics With Webb
Webb’s new data is giving researchers further insights into not just the temperature of 14 Herculis c, but other details about the planet’s orbit and atmosphere.
Findings indicate the planet orbits around 1.4 billion miles from the host star in a highly elliptical, or football-shaped orbit, closer in than previous estimates. This is around 15 times farther from the Sun than Earth. On average, this would put 14 Herculis c between Saturn and Uranus in our solar system.
The planet’s brightness at 4.4 microns measured using Webb’s coronagraph, combined with the known mass of the planet and age of the system, hints at some complex atmospheric dynamics at play.
“If a planet of a certain mass formed 4 billion years ago, then cooled over time because it doesn’t have a source of energy keeping it warm, we can predict how hot it should be today,” said Daniella C. Bardalez Gagliuffi of Amherst College, co-first author on the paper with Balmer. “Added information, like the perceived brightness in direct imaging, would in theory support this estimate of the planet’s temperature.”
However, what researchers expect isn’t always reflected in the results. With 14 Herculis c, the brightness at this wavelength is fainter than expected for an object of this mass and age. The research team can explain this discrepancy, though. It’s called carbon disequilibrium chemistry, something often seen in brown dwarfs.
“This exoplanet is so cold, the best comparisons we have that are well-studied are the coldest brown dwarfs,” Bardalez Gagliuffi explained. “In those objects, like with 14 Herculis c, we see carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide existing at temperatures where we should see methane. This is explained by churning in the atmosphere. Molecules made at warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere are brought to the cold, upper atmosphere very quickly.”
Researchers hope Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c is just the beginning of a new phase of investigation into this strange system.
While the small dot of light obtained by Webb contains a plethora of information, future spectroscopic studies of 14 Herculis could better constrain the atmospheric properties of this interesting planet and help researchers understand the dynamics and formation pathways of the system.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Related Information
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Webb Blog: How Webb’s Coronagraphs Reveal Exoplanets in the Infrared
Read more about Webb’s Impact on Exoplanet Research
More Webb News
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Webb Mission Page
Related For Kids
What is the Webb Telescope?
SpacePlace for Kids
En Español
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Keep Exploring Related Topics
James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…
Exoplanets
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Universe
Share
Details
Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
Exoplanets Astrophysics Goddard Space Flight Center James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Science & Research Studying Exoplanets The Universe View the full article
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