Over the past five months, the James Webb Space Telescope and the joint NASA, European Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency teams behind the project have been working towards the completion of the observatory’s six-month-long commissioning phase at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 (L2). With the observatory’s mirrors recently completing alignment, Webb and its teams are preparing for the all-important and historic first image from the observatory.
As teams continue to work towards completing commissioning, some of the first scientific research targets of Webb’s operational phase have been announced, including two strange and intriguing exoplanets that exhibit unique characteristics.