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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
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Goddard Space Flight Center NASA+ View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Thanks to its newly tilted orbit around the Sun, the European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft is the first to image the Sun’s poles from outside the ecliptic plane. Solar Orbiter’s unique viewing angle will change our understanding of the Sun’s magnetic field, the solar cycle and the workings of space weather.
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By NASA
For the first time, scientists can observe temperature changes in the Sun’s outer atmosphere thanks to new technology introduced by NASA’s CODEX instrument. This animated, color-coded heat map shows temperature changes over the course of a couple days, where red indicates hotter regions and purple indicates cooler ones. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX Key Points:
NASA’s CODEX investigation captured images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, showcasing new aspects of its gusty, uneven flow. The CODEX instrument, located on the International Space Station, is a coronagraph — a scientific tool that creates an artificial eclipse with physical disks — that measures the speed and temperature of solar wind using special filters. These first-of-their-kind measurements will help scientists improve models of space weather and better understand the Sun’s impact on Earth. Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is not a homogenous, steady flow of material, but an area with sputtering gusts of hot plasma. These images will help scientists improve their understanding of how the Sun impacts Earth and our technology in space.
“We really never had the ability to do this kind of science before,” said Jeffrey Newmark, a heliophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the principal investigator for CODEX. “The right kind of filters, the right size instrumentation — all the right things fell into place. These are brand new observations that have never been seen before, and we think there’s a lot of really interesting science to be done with it.”
The Sun continuously radiates material in the form of the solar wind. The Sun’s magnetic field shapes this material, sometimes creating flowing, ray-like formations called coronal streamers. In this view from NASA’s CODEX instrument, large dark spots block much of the bright light from the Sun. Blocking this light allows the instrument’s sensitive equipment to capture the faint light of the Sun’s outer atmosphere. NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX NASA’s CODEX is a solar coronagraph, an instrument often employed to study the Sun’s faint corona, or outer atmosphere, by blocking the bright face of the Sun. The instrument, which is installed on the International Space Station, creates artificial eclipses using a series of circular pieces of material called occulting disks at the end of a long telescope-like tube. The occulting disks are about the size of a tennis ball and are held in place by three metal arms.
Scientists often use coronagraphs to study visible light from the corona, revealing dynamic features, such as solar storms, that shape the weather in space, potentially impacting Earth and beyond.
NASA missions use coronagraphs to study the Sun in various ways, but that doesn’t mean they all see the same thing. Coronagraphs on the joint NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission look at visible light from the solar corona with both a wide field of view and a smaller one. The CODEX instrument’s field of view is somewhere in the middle, but looks at blue light to understand temperature and speed variations in the background solar wind.
In this composite image of overlapping solar observations, the center and left panels show the field-of-view coverage of the different coronagraphs with overlays and are labeled with observation ranges in solar radii. The third panel shows a zoomed-in, color-coded portion of the larger CODEX image. It highlights the temperature ratios in that portion of the solar corona using CODEX 405.0 and 393.5 nm filters. NASA/ESA/SOHO/KASI/INAF/CODEX “The CODEX instrument is doing something new,” said Newmark. “Previous coronagraph experiments have measured the density of material in the corona, but CODEX is measuring the temperature and speed of material in the slowly varying solar wind flowing out from the Sun.”
These new measurements allow scientists to better characterize the energy at the source of the solar wind.
The CODEX instrument uses four narrow-band filters — two for temperature and two for speed — to capture solar wind data. “By comparing the brightness of the images in each of these filters, we can tell the temperature and speed of the coronal solar wind,” said Newmark.
Understanding the speed and temperature of the solar wind helps scientists build a more accurate picture of the Sun, which is necessary for modeling and predicting the Sun’s behaviors.
“The CODEX instrument will impact space weather modeling by providing constraints for modelers to use in the future,” said Newmark. “We’re excited for what’s to come.”
by NASA Science Editorial Team
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md
CODEX is a collaboration between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) with additional contribution from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF).
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Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics Coronagraph Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Space Weather The Sun The Sun & Solar Physics View the full article
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