Webb Space Telescope
You’ve probably heard a bit about this spacecraft by now. The launch of the Webb telescope was one of the biggest science stories of 2021, and the telescope is now a million miles from Earth with a set of fully aligned mirrors. That means it will soon begin what it set out to do: look at some of the earliest light in the universe in the infrared and near-infrared wavelengths, to understand how galaxies emerged from the dark beginning of time and what planets beyond our solar system could host life. (If you haven’t noticed yet, two themes of modern astronomy are the most ancient past and humankind’s possible future.) Webb is expected to begin its science mission this summer, and the recent “perfect” alignment of its mirrors makes this telescope’s mission the most immediate of any on this list.
