James Webb Space Telescope
Launched in December 2021, Webb sees the first galaxies and probes exoplanet atmospheres in the infrared.
Open in the interactive tree →A 6.5 m segmented mirror at the Sun-Earth L2 point, cooled to about -230 °C, found bright galaxies earlier than models expected. It measures the chemical makeup of planets passing in front of their stars.
As of October 2026
The most distant confirmed galaxy is MoM-z14 at redshift 14.44, seen 280 million years after the Big Bang (observed May 2025, published January 2026), beating JADES-GS-z14-0 at about 290 million years. For exoplanets, the claimed dimethyl sulfide on K2-18 b (April 2025, about 3 sigma) remains disputed, and a 2026 reanalysis explains the data without it. For TRAPPIST-1 e, a September 2025 analysis excluded hydrogen-rich atmospheres and weakly disfavoured CO2-rich ones, leaving a bare rock and a nitrogen-rich atmosphere about equally likely; 15 more transits are planned.
Open steps
- First-galaxy redshifts High AI leverageUse JWST spectroscopy to confirm galaxies earlier than the current record (z 14.4, about 280 million years after the Big Bang) and measure their properties.
- Biosignature detection in JWST Medium AI leverageAnalyse JWST transmission spectra of nearby terrestrial exoplanets for O₃, CH₄ and other biosignatures.
- Transient detection in images High AI leverageDevelop image-differencing and anomaly-detection methods for JWST deep survey images to catch transients in real time.
Where AI could help
Medium AI leverage. Webb produces more data than people can analyse by hand, so AI helps retrievals and source finding; observing time is the real limit.
- Speed up atmosphere retrievals with learned surrogates and simulation-based inference
- Find and classify faint galaxies in deep fields with neural networks
- Test disputed detections such as K2-18 b with independent analysis models
- Remove noise and instrument systematics from time-series spectra
Shown so far
- In June 2026, a review preprint reported that machine-learning retrievals cut inference time from CPU-hours to seconds and speed up nested sampling by factors of 3-8 (preprint). source
Prerequisites
- Reflecting Telescope1668JWST is a reflecting telescope
- Integrated Circuit1958-1959
- Hubble Space Telescope1990
- Segmented-Mirror Telescopes1993JWST's mirror is made of actively controlled segments, as pioneered at Keck
- Exoplanet discovery1995