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Beyond Hubble

Nature Chemistry volume 14, pages 1207–1209 (2022)Cite this article

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Sit back and settle in for a tour of the chemical analysis instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope and the techniques being used to explore the planets beyond our Solar System.

Argue you might about its name1, but there is no escaping the fact that there has been nothing scientifically like the JWST in the history of our little blue marble. As the largest optical telescope in space, the JWST is designed to do what the Hubble telescope can’t: conduct spectroscopy and imaging at wavelengths where molecules can be identified by their bond bending, stretching, and vibrating in general. In other words, the JWST is an infrared (IR) telescope, and one that is ideally positioned to view objects at the very earliest stages of the Universe, as well as dim celestial bodies such as exoplanets.

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  1. Twitter: @brucecgibb

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  1. Department of Chemistry at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Bruce C. Gibb

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  1. Bruce C. Gibb
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Correspondence to Bruce C. Gibb.

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Gibb, B.C. Beyond Hubble. Nat. Chem. 14, 1207–1209 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-022-01080-2

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