Time Machine to the Cosmos

By Jonathan Beyoghlow

Built in partnership with Northrop Grumman, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has been making history ever since it was propelled into space in December 2021, revealing never-before-seen details of the early cosmos. Referred to as a time machine, Webb’s powerful instruments use infrared vision to peer back over 13.5 billion years and view the earliest stars and galaxies.

Northrop Grumman led the design and build of the observatory, including Webb’s deployable sunshield and primary mirror backplane, the spacecraft bus and the full integration of the observatory.Webb’s groundbreaking images are helping astronomers answer questions about how the universe began and, ultimately, if there is life beyond Earth. Today, Northrop Grumman is playing a pivotal role to ensure Webb performs optimally in space. In fact, NASA recently awarded the company a contract to provide operational support and maintenance for the spacecraft through 2027. To learn more about how Webb is enabling groundbreaking science as well as the ways Northrop Grumman continues to fuel astronomical discovery, here are three of Webb’s top observations to date.