All upcoming Astronomy & Space programs

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has begun a 20-year mission of observation that promises to revolutionize our understanding of the universe. Kelly Beatty, senior editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, reveals how astronomers are using the telescope’s state-of-the-art instruments and enormous optical system to detect extremely faint infrared objects from both the very near and very distant universe—information that can help in identifying the earliest stars and galaxies to form after the Big Bang and in exploring the planetary systems of other stars.

Attempts to answer the questions “How did life on Earth begin?” and “Are we alone in the universe?” have opened extraordinarily vibrant and dynamic frontiers of investigation. Astrophysicist Mario Livio examines how the quest for cosmic life follows two parallel, independent lines of research: laboratory studies aimed at determining if life can emerge from pure chemistry, and advanced astronomical observations searching for signs of life beyond Earth.

What do sunflowers, Salvador Dali’s painting The Sacrament of the Last Supper, and black holes have in common? They share characteristics described by a curious irrational number, which approximates to 1.618. Known since antiquity as the Golden Ratio, or Phi, it has come to represent the proportions of ideally pleasing geometrical structures. Astrophysicist Mario Livio separates the myth from the math to bring this remarkable number to life.

The last decade has seen a resurgence of research into black holes and observations of their immediate surroundings. Astronomers have tracked the motion of stars around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, made images of the glowing material falling toward the gargantuan black hole M87*, and detected chirps of gravitational waves emanating from merging black holes billions of light-years away. Astrophysicist Joshua Winn of Princeton University reviews the theory of black holes and these recent observational developments.

Are we alone in the universe and are there Earth-like planets orbiting other stars in the Milky Way? In 2009, NASA launched the Kepler space telescope to answer these questions. Jason Steffen, a former member of the science team on the mission, traces Kepler from the take-off of the rocket that sent it into space to the revelations of the data that flowed back to a supercomputer at NASA—evidence of strange new worlds unlike anything found in our own solar system.