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JWST is most in-demand telescope ever — leaving many astronomers in the cold

Reviewers will probably approve only one in every nine research proposals submitted in latest application cycle.
  1. Rahul Rao
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A face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which is circular.

JWST has captured images of spiral galaxies in unprecedented detail. This one, NGC 1512, is about 9.2 million parsecs (30 million light years) away. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford) and the PHANGS team

Astronomers from around the world met last week to review the latest crop of research proposals for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). They sifted through 1,931 submissions — the most ever received for any telescope in history — and ranked them. By the time the reviewers begin releasing their decisions in late February, only one in every nine proposals will have been allotted time to collect data with JWST.

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Nature 626, 464-465 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00315-1

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