A great variety of galaxies in color, morphology, age and inherent stellar populations can be seen in this deep-field Hubble image. James Webb will go even farther. Image credit: NASA, ESA, R. Windhorst, S. Cohen, M. Mechtley, and M. Rutkowski (Arizona State University, Tempe), R. O’Connell (University of Virginia), P. McCarthy (Carnegie Observatories), N. Hathi (University of California, Riverside), R. Ryan (University of California, Davis), H. Yan (Ohio State University), and A. Koekemoer (Space Telescope Science Institute).

How NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will answer astronomy’s biggest questions

A live-blog event of an incredible public lecture by a scientist on the inside of James Webb’s team.

“The [James Webb] telescope is basically designed to answer the big questions in astronomy, the questions Hubble can’t answer.” -Amber Straughn

In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope began operations, making it the first great NASA observatory, capable of seeing to the far reaches of the distant Universe. It’s shown us what our Universe looks like today, and how it’s changed and grown over billions of years. It showed us how galaxies were different billions of years ago, and uncovered the faint, distant galaxies that shaped our Universe today. But there are a number of questions it can’t answer:

• What were the first stars and galaxies like?
• How do stars come to form deep within a dusty nebula?
• What are the atmospheres of Earth-sized worlds like, and do they contain signatures of life?
• How far away do we need to look to see the pristine, pre-stellar Universe?
• And how did the early stars and galaxies assemble to give rise to what we have today?