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This artist’s concept animation shows the orbital dynamics of KOI-134 system which, in 2025, a paper revealed to have two planets: KOI-134 b and KOI-134 c. NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC) The Planets
KOI-134 b and KOI-134 c
This artist’s concept shows the KOI-134 system which, in 2025, a paper revealed to have two planets: KOI-134 b and KOI-134 c. NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC) The Discovery
A new investigation into old Kepler data has revealed that a planetary system once thought to house zero planets actually has two planets which orbit their star in a unique style, like an old-fashioned merry-go-round.
Key Facts
The KOI-134 system contains two planets which orbit their star in a peculiar fashion on two different orbital planes, with one planet exhibiting significant variation in transit times. This is the first-discovered system of its kind.
Details
Over a decade ago, scientists used NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope to observe the KOI-134 system and thought that it might have a planet orbiting, but they deemed this planet candidate to be a false positive, because its transits (or passes in front of its star) were not lining up as expected. These transits were so abnormal that the planet was actually weeded out through an automated system as a false positive before it could be analyzed further.
However, NASA’s commitment to openly sharing scientific data means that researchers can constantly revisit old observations to make new discoveries. In this new study, researchers re-analyzed this Kepler data on KOI-134 and confirmed that not only is the “false positive” actually a real planet, but the system has two planets and some really interesting orbital dynamics!
First, the “false positive” planet, named KOI-134 b, was confirmed to be a warm Jupiter (or a warm planet of a similar size to Jupiter). Through this analysis, researchers uncovered that the reason this planet eluded confirmation previously is because it experiences what are called transit timing variations (TTVs), or small differences in a planet’s transit across its star that can make its transit “early” or “late” because the planet is being pushed or pulled by the gravity from another planet which was also revealed in this study. Researchers estimate that KOI-134 b transits across its star as much as 20 hours “late” or “early,” which is a significant variation. In fact, it was so significant that it’s the reason why the planet wasn’t confirmed in initial observations.
As these TTVs are caused by the gravitational interaction with another planet, this discovery also revealed a planetary sibling: KOI-134 c. Through studying this system in simulations that include these TTVs, the team found that KOI-134 c is a planet slightly smaller than Saturn and closer to its star than KOI-134 b.
This artist’s concept shows the KOI-134 system which, in 2025, a paper revealed to have two planets: KOI-134 b and KOI-134 c. NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC) KOI-134 c previously eluded observation because it orbits on a tilted orbital plane, a different plane from KOI-134 b, and this tilted orbit prevents the planet from transiting its star. The two orbital planes of these planets are about 15 degrees different from one another, also known as a mutual inclination of 15 degrees, which is significant. Due to the gravitational push and pull between these two planets, their orbital planes also tilt back and forth.
Another interesting feature of this planetary system is something called resonance. These two planets have a 2 to 1 resonance, meaning within the same time that one planet completes one orbit, the other completes two orbits. In this case, KOI-134 b has an orbital period (the time it takes a planet to complete one orbit) of about 67 days, which is twice the orbital period of KOI-134 c, which orbits every 33-34 days.
Between the separate orbital planes tilting back and forth, the TTVs, and the resonance, the two planets orbit their star in a pattern that resembles two wooden ponies bobbing up and down as they circle around on an old-fashioned merry go round.
Fun Facts
While this system started as a false positive with Kepler, this re-analysis of the data reveals a vibrant system with two planets. In fact, this is the first-ever discovered compact, multiplanetary system that isn’t flat, has such a significant TTV, and experiences orbital planes tilting back and forth.
Also, most planetary systems do not have high mutual inclinations between close planet pairs. In addition to being a rarity, mutual inclinations like this are also not often measured because of challenges within the observation process. So, having measurements like this of a significant mutual inclination in a system, as well as measurements of resonance and TTVs, provides a clear picture of dynamics within a planetary system which we are not always able to see.
The Discoverers
A team of scientists led by Emma Nabbie of the University of Southern Queensland published a paper on June 27 on their discovery, “A high mutual inclination system around KOI-134 revealed by transit timing variations,” in the journal “Nature Astronomy.” The observations described in this paper and used in simulations in this paper were made by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and the paper included collaboration and contributions from institutions including the University of Geneva, University of La Laguna, Purple Mountain Observatory, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Southern Queensland, and NASA’s retired Kepler Space Telescope.
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The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station train inside a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in Hawthorne, California. From left to right: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, and JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui.Credit: SpaceX NASA and its partners will discuss the upcoming crew rotation to the International Space Station during a pair of news conferences on Thursday, July 10, from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
First is an overview news conference at 12 p.m. EDT with mission leadership discussing final launch and mission preparations on the agency’s YouTube channel.
Next, crew will participate in a news conference at 2 p.m. on NASA’s YouTube channel, followed by individual astronaut interviews at 3 p.m. This is the final media opportunity with Crew-11 before they travel to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch.
The Crew-11 mission, targeted to launch in late July/early August, will carry NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to the orbiting laboratory. The crew will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A.
United States-based media seeking to attend in person must contact the NASA Johnson newsroom no later than 5 p.m. on Monday, July 7, at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
Any media interested in participating in the news conferences by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom by 9:45 a.m. the day of the event. Media seeking virtual interviews with the crew must submit requests to the Johnson newsroom by 5 p.m. on Monday, July 7.
Briefing participants are as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
12 p.m.: Mission Overview News Conference
Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Kennedy Bill Spetch, operations integration manager, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate representative Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX Mayumi Matsuura, vice president and director general, Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate, JAXA 2 p.m.: Crew News Conference
Zena Cardman, Crew-11 commander, NASA Mike Fincke, Crew-11 pilot, NASA Kimiya Yui, Crew-11 mission specialist, JAXA Oleg Platonov, Crew-11 mission specialist, Roscosmos 3 p.m.: Crew Individual Interview Opportunities
Crew-11 members available for a limited number of interviews
Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017, Cardman will conduct her first spaceflight. The Williamsburg, Virginia, native holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and a master’s in Marine Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time of selection, she was pursuing a doctorate in geosciences. Cardman’s geobiology and geochemical cycling research focused on subsurface environments, from caves to deep sea sediments. Since completing initial training, Cardman has supported real-time station operations and lunar surface exploration planning. Follow @zenanaut on X and @zenanaut on Instagram.
This will be Fincke’s fourth trip to the space station, having logged 382 days in space and nine spacewalks during Expedition 9 in 2004, Expedition 18 in 2008, and STS-134 in 2011, the final flight of space shuttle Endeavour. Throughout the past decade, Fincke has applied his expertise to NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, advancing the development and testing of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Boeing Starliner spacecraft toward operational certification. The Emsworth, Pennsylvania, native is a graduate of the United States Air Force Test Pilot School and holds bachelors’ degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in both aeronautics and astronautics, as well as Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences. He also has a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University in California. Fincke is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel with more than 2,000 flight hours in over 30 different aircraft. Follow @AstroIronMike on X and Instagram.
With 142 days in space, this will be Yui’s second trip to the space station. After his selection as a JAXA astronaut in 2009, Yui flew as a flight engineer for Expedition 44/45 and became the first Japanese astronaut to capture JAXA’s H-II Transfer Vehicle using the station’s robotic arm. In addition to constructing a new experimental environment aboard Kibo, he conducted a total of 21 experiments for JAXA. In November 2016, Yui was assigned as chief of the JAXA Astronaut Group. He graduated from the School of Science and Engineering at the National Defense Academy of Japan in 1992. He later joined the Air Self-Defense Force at the Japan Defense Agency (currently the Ministry of Defense). In 2008, Yui joined the Air Staff Office at the Ministry of Defense as a lieutenant colonel. Follow @astro_kimiya on X.
The Crew-11 mission also will be Platonov’s first spaceflight. Before his selection as a cosmonaut in 2018, Platonov earned a degree in engineering from Krasnodar Air Force Academy in aircraft operations and air traffic management. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in state and municipal management in 2016 from the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia. Assigned as a test cosmonaut in 2021, he has experience in piloting aircraft, zero gravity training, scuba diving, and wilderness survival.
For more information about the mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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How NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Share Its All-Sky Map With the World
NASA’s SPHEREx mission will map the entire sky in 102 different wavelengths, or colors, of infrared light. This image of the Vela Molecular Ridge was captured by SPHEREx and is part of the mission’s first ever public data release. The yellow patch on the right side of the image is a cloud of interstellar gas and dust that glows in some infrared colors due to radiation from nearby stars. NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s newest astrophysics space telescope launched in March on a mission to create an all-sky map of the universe. Now settled into low-Earth orbit, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) has begun delivering its sky survey data to a public archive on a weekly basis, allowing anyone to use the data to probe the secrets of the cosmos.
“Because we’re looking at everything in the whole sky, almost every area of astronomy can be addressed by SPHEREx data,” said Rachel Akeson, the lead for the SPHEREx Science Data Center at IPAC. IPAC is a science and data center for astrophysics and planetary science at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Almost every area of astronomy can be addressed by SPHEREx data.
Rachel Akeson
SPHEREx Science Data Center Lead
Other missions, like NASA’s now-retired WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), have also mapped the entire sky. SPHEREx builds on this legacy by observing in 102 infrared wavelengths, compared to WISE’s four wavelength bands.
By putting the many wavelength bands of SPHEREx data together, scientists can identify the signatures of specific molecules with a technique known as spectroscopy. The mission’s science team will use this method to study the distribution of frozen water and organic molecules — the “building blocks of life” — in the Milky Way.
This animation shows how NASA’s SPHEREx observatory will map the entire sky — a process it will complete four times over its two-year mission. The telescope will observe every point in the sky in 102 different infrared wavelengths, more than any other all-sky survey. SPHEREx’s openly available data will enable a wide variety of astronomical studies. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The SPHEREx science team will also use the mission’s data to study the physics that drove the universe’s expansion following the big bang, and to measure the amount of light emitted by all the galaxies in the universe over time. Releasing SPHEREx data in a public archive encourages far more astronomical studies than the team could do on their own.
“By making the data public, we enable the whole astronomy community to use SPHEREx data to work on all these other areas of science,” Akeson said.
NASA is committed to the sharing of scientific data, promoting transparency and efficiency in scientific research. In line with this commitment, data from SPHEREx appears in the public archive within 60 days after the telescope collects each observation. The short delay allows the SPHEREx team to process the raw data to remove or flag artifacts, account for detector effects, and align the images to the correct astronomical coordinates.
The team publishes the procedures they used to process the data alongside the actual data products. “We want enough information in those files that people can do their own research,” Akeson said.
One of the early test images captured by NASA’s SPHEREx mission in April 2025. This image shows a section of sky in one infrared wavelength, or color, that is invisible to the human eye but is represented here in a visible color. This particular wavelength (3.29 microns) reveals a cloud of dust made of a molecule similar to soot or smoke. NASA/JPL-Caltech This image from NASA’s SPHEREx shows the same region of space in a different infrared wavelength (0.98 microns), once again represented by a color that is visible to the human eye. The dust cloud has vanished because the molecules that make up the dust — polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — do not radiate light in this color. NASA/JPL-Caltech
During its two-year prime mission, SPHEREx will survey the entire sky twice a year, creating four all-sky maps. After the mission reaches the one-year mark, the team plans to release a map of the whole sky at all 102 wavelengths.
In addition to the science enabled by SPHEREx itself, the telescope unlocks an even greater range of astronomical studies when paired with other missions. Data from SPHEREx can be used to identify interesting targets for further study by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, refine exoplanet parameters collected from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), and study the properties of dark matter and dark energy along with ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Euclid mission and NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
The SPHEREx mission’s all-sky survey will complement data from other NASA space telescopes. SPHEREx is illustrated second from the right. The other telescope illustrations are, from left to right: the Hubble Space Telescope, the retired Spitzer Space Telescope, the retired WISE/NEOWISE mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. NASA/JPL-Caltech The IPAC archive that hosts SPHEREx data, IRSA (NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive), also hosts pointed observations and all-sky maps at a variety of wavelengths from previous missions. The large amount of data available through IRSA gives users a comprehensive view of the astronomical objects they want to study.
“SPHEREx is part of the entire legacy of NASA space surveys,” said IRSA Science Lead Vandana Desai. “People are going to use the data in all kinds of ways that we can’t imagine.”
NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer leads open science efforts for the agency. Public sharing of scientific data, tools, research, and software maximizes the impact of NASA’s science missions. To learn more about NASA’s commitment to transparency and reproducibility of scientific research, visit science.nasa.gov/open-science. To get more stories about the impact of NASA’s science data delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for the NASA Open Science newsletter.
By Lauren Leese
Web Content Strategist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer
More About SPHEREx
The SPHEREx mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Caltech in Pasadena managed and integrated the instrument. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
To learn more about SPHEREx, visit:
https://nasa.gov/SPHEREx
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Calla Cofield
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626-808-2469
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Amanda Adams
Office of the Chief Science Data Officer
256-683-6661
amanda.m.adams@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 02, 2025 Related Terms
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Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Webb’s First Images Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning Since July 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been unwaveringly focused on our universe. With its unprecedented power to detect and analyze otherwise invisible infrared light, Webb is making observations that were once impossible, changing our view of the cosmos from the most distant galaxies to our own solar system.
Webb was built with the promise of revolutionizing astronomy, of rewriting the textbooks. And by any measure, it has more than lived up to the hype — exceeding expectations to a degree that scientists had not dared imagine. Since science operations began, Webb has completed more than 860 scientific programs, with one-quarter of its time dedicated to imaging and three-quarters to spectroscopy. In just three years, it has collected nearly 550 terabytes of data, yielding more than 1,600 research papers, with intriguing results too numerous to list and a host of new questions to answer.
Here are just a few noteworthy examples.
1. The universe evolved significantly faster than we previously thought.
Webb was specifically designed to observe “cosmic dawn,” a time during the first billion years of the universe when the first stars and galaxies were forming. What we expected to see were a few faint galaxies, hints of what would become the galaxies we see nearby.
Instead, Webb has revealed surprisingly bright galaxies that developed within 300 million years of the big bang; galaxies with black holes that seem far too massive for their age; and an infant Milky Way-type galaxy that existed when the universe was just 600 million years old. Webb has observed galaxies that already “turned off” and stopped forming stars within a billion years of the big bang, as well as those that developed quickly into modern-looking “grand design” spirals within 1.5 billion years.
Hundreds of millions of years might not seem quick for a growth spurt, but keep in mind that the universe formed in the big bang roughly 13.8 billion years ago. If you were to cram all of cosmic time into one year, the most distant of these galaxies would have matured within the first couple of weeks, rapidly forming multiple generations of stars and enriching the universe with the elements we see today.
Image: JADES deep field
A near-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a region known as the JADES Deep Field. Tens of thousands of galaxies are visible in this tiny patch of sky, including Little Red Dots and hundreds of galaxies that existed more than 13.2 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 600 million years old. Webb also spotted roughly 80 ancient supernovae, many of which exploded when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. This is ten times more supernovae than had ever been discovered before in the early universe. Comparing these supernovae from the distant past with those in the more recent, nearby universe helps us understand how stars in these early times formed, lived, and died, seeding space with the elements for new generations of stars and their planets. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JADES Collaboration 2. Deep space is scattered with enigmatic “Little Red Dots.”
Webb has revealed a new type of galaxy: a distant population of mysteriously compact, bright, red galaxies dubbed Little Red Dots. What makes Little Red Dots so bright and so red? Are they lit up by dense groupings of unusually bright stars or by gas spiraling into a supermassive black hole, or both? And whatever happened to them? Little Red Dots seem to have appeared in the universe around 600 million years after the big bang (13.2 billion years ago), and rapidly declined in number less than a billion years later. Did they evolve into something else? If so, how? Webb is probing Little Red Dots in more detail to answer these questions.
3. Pulsating stars and a triply lensed supernova are further evidence that the “Hubble Tension” is real.
How fast is the universe expanding? It’s hard to say because different ways of calculating the current expansion rate yield different results — a dilemma known as the Hubble Tension. Are these differences just a result of measurement errors, or is there something weird going on in the universe? So far, Webb data indicates that the Hubble Tension is not caused by measurement errors. Webb was able to distinguish pulsating stars from nearby stars in a crowded field, ensuring that the measurements weren’t contaminated by extra light. Webb also discovered a distant, gravitationally lensed supernova whose image appears in three different locations and at three different times during its explosion. Calculating the expansion rate based on the brightness of the supernova at these three different times provides an independent check on measurements made using other techniques. Until the matter of the Hubble Tension is settled, Webb will continue measuring different objects and exploring new methods.
4. Webb has found surprisingly rich and varied atmospheres on gas giants orbiting distant stars.
While NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope made the first detection of gases in the atmosphere of a gas giant exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system), Webb has taken studies to an entirely new level. Webb has revealed a rich cocktail of chemicals, including hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane, and sulfur dioxide — none of which had been clearly detected in an atmosphere outside our solar system before. Webb has also been able to examine exotic climates of gas giants as never before, detecting flakes of silica “snow” in the skies of the puffy, searing-hot gas giant WASP-17 b, for example, and measuring differences in temperature and cloud cover between the permanent morning and evening skies of WASP-39 b.
Image: Spectrum of WASP-107 b
A transmission spectrum of the “warm Neptune” exoplanet WASP-107 b captured by NASA’s Hubble and Webb space telescopes, shows clear evidence for water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, sulfur dioxide, and ammonia in the planet’s atmosphere. These measurements allowed researchers to estimate the interior temperature and mass of the core of the planet, as well as understand the chemistry and dynamics of the atmosphere. NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) 5. A rocky planet 40 light-years from Earth may have an atmosphere fed by gas bubbling up from its lava-covered surface.
Detecting, let alone analyzing, a thin layer of gas surrounding a small rocky planet is no easy feat, but Webb’s extraordinary ability to measure extremely subtle changes in the brightness of infrared light makes it possible. So far, Webb has been able to rule out significant atmosphere on a number of rocky planets, and has found tantalizing signs of carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide on 55 Cancri e, a lava world that orbits a Sun-like star. With findings like these, Webb is laying the groundwork for NASA’s future Habitable Worlds Observatory, which will be the first mission purpose-built to directly image and search for life on Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars.
6. Webb exposes the skeletal structure of nearby spiral galaxies in mesmerizing detail.
We already knew that galaxies are collections of stars, planets, dust, gas, dark matter, and black holes: cosmic cities where stars form, live, die, and are recycled into the next generation. But we had never been able to see the structure of a galaxy and the interactions between stars and their environment in such detail. Webb’s infrared vision reveals filaments of dust that trace the spiral arms, old star clusters that make up galactic cores, newly forming stars still encased in dense cocoons of glowing dust and gas, and clusters of hot young stars carving enormous cavities in the dust. It also elucidates how stellar winds and explosions actively reshape their galactic homes.
Image: PHANGS Phantom Galaxy (M74/NGC 628)
A near- to mid-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope highlights details in the complex structure of a nearby galaxy that are invisible to other telescopes. The image of NGC 628, also known as the Phantom Galaxy, shows spiral arms with lanes of warm dust (represented in red), knots of glowing gas (orange-yellow), and giant bubbles (black) carved by hot, young stars. The dust-free core of the galaxy is filled with older, cooler stars (blue). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS team 7. It can be hard to tell the difference between a brown dwarf and a rogue planet.
Brown dwarfs form like stars, but are not dense or hot enough to fuse hydrogen in their cores like stars do. Rogue planets form like other planets, but have been ejected from their system and no longer orbit a star. Webb has spotted hundreds of brown-dwarf-like objects in the Milky Way, and has even detected some candidates in a neighboring galaxy. But some of these objects are so small — just a few times the mass of Jupiter — that it is hard to figure out how they formed. Are they free-floating gas giant planets instead? What is the least amount of material needed to form a brown dwarf or a star? We’re not sure yet, but thanks to three years of Webb observations, we now know there is a continuum of objects from planets to brown dwarfs to stars.
8. Some planets might be able to survive the death of their star.
When a star like our Sun dies, it swells up to form a red giant large enough to engulf nearby planets. It then sheds its outer layers, leaving behind a super-hot core known as a white dwarf. Is there a safe distance that planets can survive this process? Webb might have found some planets orbiting white dwarfs. If these candidates are confirmed, it would mean that it is possible for planets to survive the death of their star, remaining in orbit around the slowly cooling stellar ember.
9. Saturn’s water supply is fed by a giant fountain of vapor spewing from Enceladus.
Among the icy “ocean worlds” of our solar system, Saturn’s moon Enceladus might be the most intriguing. NASA’s Cassini mission first detected water plumes coming out of its southern pole. But only Webb could reveal the plume’s true scale as a vast cloud spanning more than 6,000 miles, about 20 times wider than Enceladus itself. This water spreads out into a donut-shaped torus encircling Saturn beyond the rings that are visible in backyard telescopes. While a fraction of the water stays in that ring, the majority of it spreads throughout the Saturnian system, even raining down onto the planet itself. Webb’s unique observations of rings, auroras, clouds, winds, ices, gases, and other materials and phenomena in the solar system are helping us better understand what our cosmic neighborhood is made of and how it has changed over time.
Video: Water plume and torus from Enceladus
A combination of images and spectra captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope show a giant plume of water jetting out from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, creating a donut-shaped ring of water around the planet.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, G. Villanueva (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center), A. Pagan (STScI), L. Hustak (STScI) 10. Webb can size up asteroids that may be headed for Earth.
In 2024 astronomers discovered an asteroid that, based on preliminary calculations, had a chance of hitting Earth. Such potentially hazardous asteroids become an immediate focus of attention, and Webb was uniquely able to measure the object, which turned out to be the size of a 15-story building. While this particular asteroid is no longer considered a threat to Earth, the study demonstrated Webb’s ability to assess the hazard.
Webb also provided support for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which deliberately smashed into the Didymos binary asteroid system, showing that a planned impact could deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Both Webb and Hubble observed the impact, serving witness to the resulting spray of material that was ejected. Webb’s spectroscopic observations of the system confirmed that the composition of the asteroids is probably typical of those that could threaten Earth.
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In just three years of operations, Webb has brought the distant universe into focus, revealing unexpectedly bright and numerous galaxies. It has unveiled new stars in their dusty cocoons, remains of exploded stars, and skeletons of entire galaxies. It has studied weather on gas giants, and hunted for atmospheres on rocky planets. And it has provided new insights into the residents of our own solar system.
But this is only the beginning. Engineers estimate that Webb has enough fuel to continue observing for at least 20 more years, giving us the opportunity to answer additional questions, pursue new mysteries, and put together more pieces of the cosmic puzzle.
For example: What were the very first stars like? Did stars form differently in the early universe? Do we even know how galaxies form? How do stars, dust, and supermassive black holes affect each other? What can merging galaxy clusters tell us about the nature of dark matter? How do collisions, bursts of stellar radiation, and migration of icy pebbles affect planet-forming disks? Can atmospheres survive on rocky worlds orbiting active red dwarf stars? Is Uranus’s moon Ariel an ocean world?
As with any scientific endeavor, every answer raises more questions, and Webb has shown that its investigative power is unmatched. Demand for observing time on Webb is at an all-time high, greater than any other telescope in history, on the ground or in space. What new findings await?
By Dr. Macarena Garcia Marin and Margaret W. Carruthers, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Jul 02, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
Artist’s concept.Credit: NASA NASA announced Monday its latest plans to team up with a streaming service to bring space a little closer to home. Starting this summer, NASA+ live programming will be available on Netflix.
Audiences now will have another option to stream rocket launches, astronaut spacewalks, mission coverage, and breathtaking live views of Earth from the International Space Station.
“The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 calls on us to share our story of space exploration with the broadest possible audience,” said Rebecca Sirmons, general manager of NASA+ at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “Together, we’re committed to a Golden Age of Innovation and Exploration – inspiring new generations – right from the comfort of their couch or in the palm of their hand from their phone.”
Through this partnership, NASA’s work in science and exploration will become even more accessible, allowing the agency to increase engagement with and inspire a global audience in a modern media landscape, where Netflix reaches a global audience of more than 700 million people.
The agency’s broader efforts include connecting with as many people as possible through video, audio, social media, and live events. The goal is simple: to bring the excitement of the agency’s discoveries, inventions, and space exploration to people, wherever they are.
NASA+ remains available for free, with no ads, through the NASA app and on the agency’s website.
Additional programming details and schedules will be announced ahead of launch.
For more about NASA’s missions, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
-end-
Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jun 30, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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