One year ago, the telescope began its journey.
"JWST was a present that took six months to unwrap after it was launched on Christmas day," said Jane Rigby, an astronomer at NASA.
The telescope began to collect data after the initial calibration period. The first results astounded the astronomer.
"I downloaded the data, and I'm like, sitting in my pajamas, we're all working from home." I pulled down the data and began to read it. It was gorgeous.
Five months into its science mission, the telescope is already making a difference. Previously unobservable planets, stars and galaxies have been captured by the telescope.
Three astronomer in different disciplines of astronomy were interviewed by NPR about the advancement of their research. They all agree that there is a lot more research to be done.
There is a planetary astronomer on the project. She joined the team so she could study Neptune.
The mirror was trained on the ice giant.
I was so emotional when I saw the image on my computer screen. I started crying and called my family to look at the picture.
Astronomers had never seen Neptune's ring system before. The bright parts of the planet's rings were only captured by theVoyager craft.
The rings were spotted with great clarity.
That's a boom!" The ring systems are gorgeous.
The oldest and most distant known galaxies have been observed by the JWST.
For a long time, I've been looking at simulation data, trying to duplicate what the JWST would see. It was like stepping out of a virtual reality into the real world when I first saw the data.
Robertson is part of a team of researchers. The universe's lifetime is less than 400 million years, but the team was able to identify some of the oldest and smallest of the universe's stars.
"We can learn a lot about our history, about the history of the universe in general, but also about our home," said Robertson.
Robertson said that while older telescopes like Hubble gave a glimpse of what was out there, the scope of what kind of science is possible has expanded thanks to the new telescope.
Robertson said it was like opening a book that you've wanted to know the ending for a long time but have been holding off on reading.
The operations project scientist is using the telescope to look at distant galaxies.
She's been able to study how stars are forming in the galaxies with the help of a naturally occurring phenomenon called gravitational lensing.
Everything we're doing isn't possible before the telescope.
Hubble wouldn't have been able to see through the dust. Astronomers commonly use the chemical makeup of objects in space to identify the chemical composition of objects in the universe.
"We're studying where stars are forming in these lensed galaxies in ways that are not possible with any other telescope."
The biggest discoveries are still to come despite the fact that JWST has proven to be an incredible tool for astronomy.
She said that they were getting a flood of papers announcing discoveries. It is being used to study planets in our own solar system, atmospheres of planets in other solar systems, how stars die, and much more.
Astronomers can still use Hubble even though it's more powerful than previous telescopes.
"JWST was built to do things that Hubble can't do, so they play well together." The pitchers and catchers on your baseball team do different things.
It's possible that the telescope can outlive its five-year mission because it has enough propellant on board.
"I think next year is going to be even more exciting than this year."
It will take a long time to sift through the data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope and see how much it can change our understanding of the universe.