James Webb space telescope news, articles and features | ��è��Ƶ

The best map of dark matter has revealed never-before-seen structures

Leah Crane — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:00:51 +0000

The dark matter distribution observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (left) and by the James Webb Space Telescope (right)

Dr Gavin Leroy/Professor Richard Massey/COSMOS-Webb collaboration

��è��Ƶs have created the best ever map of dark matter using subtle distortions in the shape of about 250,000 galaxies. It could help us understand some of the biggest mysteries in the cosmos.

Dark matter is extraordinarily hard to map because, true to its name, it doesn’t emit any light that we can detect. It only interacts with regular matter through its gravitational pull, so that is what researchers use to figure out where it is. at Northeastern University in Massachusetts and her colleagues used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to do so, examining an area of sky slightly bigger than the full moon.

“It is a very high-resolution picture of the scaffolding of this little corner of the universe,” says McCleary. The resolution of the map is about twice as high as previous ones made with the Hubble Space Telescope, and it includes structures much further from Earth.

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This mind-blowing map shows Earth’s position within the vast universe

To make this map, the researchers examined the shapes of about 250,000 galaxies – but it isn’t their intrinsic shape that is interesting. “Those galaxies are basically the cosmic wallpaper,” says at the University of Minnesota, who wasn’t involved in the analysis. Instead, what’s important is how the gravity of dark matter between the telescope and the “wallpaper” warps the light of the galaxies, in a process called gravitational lensing: the further the average shape of the distant galaxies is from circular, the more dark matter lies between them and us.

By analysing these differences in shape, the researchers mapped out huge clusters of galaxies, along with the filaments of the cosmic web that connects them. Some of these structures didn’t match up with anything we had previously seen while observing regular, or luminous, matter, indicating that they must be dominated by dark matter. “To identify many of these structures over a wide field, gravitational lensing is one of very, very few techniques, and definitely the best,” says Williams.

This is important because dark matter makes up about 85 per cent of the total matter in the universe, so it is crucial to the evolution of not only galaxies and galaxy clusters, but also the cosmos as a whole. Building a map of its distribution could help us nail down how it behaves and what exactly it is made of, says Williams.

Is our cosmos just a membrane on the edge of a far stranger reality?

String theory may be our best attempt at a theory of everything, except that it can't describe an expanding universe like ours. Now a radical new twist on the idea could finally fix that – but it requires us to completely reimagine reality

“Not only is it an observational coup, but in turn it’s going to enable a lot of other analysis – cosmological parameter constraints, the connection between galaxies and their dark matter haloes and how they grow and evolve over time,” says McCleary. These cosmological parameters include the strength of dark energy, the mysterious force causing the universe to expand at an accelerating rate.

For now, it appears that the JWST map matches our current standard model of the universe, known as lambda-CDM, but there are many in-depth investigations of the data yet to be done that are certain to provide new insights, says McCleary. “Although at a glance it’s a match for lambda-CDM, I’m not giving up yet – I’m withholding judgment until our analysis is finished.”

Journal reference

Nature Astronomy

Distant ‘little red dot’ galaxies may contain baby black holes

Alex Wilkins — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:00:19 +0000

Since launching in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope has found hundreds of distant and apparently bright galaxies dubbed "little red dots", and now it seems they may each carry a baby black hole

Astronomers may have glimpsed evidence of the biggest stars ever seen

Leah Crane — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 16:19:29 +0000

The distant universe might be littered with supermassive stars between 1000 and 10,000 times the mass of the sun, which could solve a cosmic mystery about the origins of extremely large black holes

We may have found a surprisingly nearby cluster of primordial stars

Leah Crane — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 10:00:16 +0000

The very first generation of stars, called Population III stars, are mostly expected to be too distant to see directly – but astronomers may have found some for the very first time

New moon discovered orbiting Uranus is its smallest one

Matthew Sparkes — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:20:15 +0000

Astronomers have found a new moon nested among the 28 others near Uranus

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Mou

A small and dim moon has been discovered in orbit around Uranus, bringing the planet’s total to 29. Many of the ice giant’s other moons are named after characters from works by William Shakespeare, and scientists are now debating which of his characters may lend the body its name. The new moon was discovered by a team led by at Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, using 10 long-exposure infrared images taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on 2 February this year. The moon currently has the provisional name . But in time it will probably be named along the same lines as 27 of Uranus’ moons: taking a character’s name from one of Shakespeare’s plays. This convention dates back to the discovery of the planet’s first two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. The chosen name for the newly-found moon will need to be approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the leading authority on assigning official names and designations to astronomical objects. at the SETI Institute, who was part of the research team and is a self-confessed theatre fan, says there have been discussions but no shortlist yet. Showalter says spotting a moon so small and dim was a difficult task. “It’s a tiny object right next to a very, very bright object. It’s like staring into the headlight of a car and trying to look at a fly,” he says. “The James Webb telescope is an extraordinary instrument that is vastly more sensitive than any other telescope that has ever existed, frankly.”

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Saturn gains 128 moons, giving it more than the other planets combined

There is hope more moons may be found around Uranus, says Showalter. “We certainly haven’t finished the job,” he says. “I think it’s reasonable to assume that there are more satellites out there. We always suspected that there might be some satellites within the ring system that are kind of what we call shepherding moons, that push the ring material around. We haven’t found any of those yet, but that’s a major focus for our ongoing work.” El Moutamid says the sharpness of Uranus’ rings indicate there are likely to be more moons, yet undiscovered, that helped with the rings’ formation. “There are probably a lot of more out there that are just waiting for us to detect them,” she says. Some of these may be found by JWST, but there could be a rash discovered by the proposed Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission in 2044 if it goes ahead as planned. “Probably there are plenty of moons out there that are very tiny, and we just cannot detect them yet because of the resolution that we have so far,” she says. S/2025 U 1 is estimated to be around 10 kilometres in diameter, meaning it is too small to have been seen by the cameras aboard the Voyager 2 probe. Voyager 2 launched in 1977 and passed by Uranus in 1986, coming as close as 81,500 kilometres. It remains the closest pass to Uranus by a spacecraft from Earth.

Is our cosmos just a membrane on the edge of a far stranger reality?

The new moon is at the edge of Uranus’ inner rings, located around 56,250 kilometres from its centre in the planet’s equatorial plane. This places it between the orbits of the moons Ophelia and Bianca. NASA operates a “General Observer” program for JWST, which allows any scientist around the world to propose targets that require one of the telescope’s advanced sensors. El Moutamid applied for time on JWST’s NIRCam instrument – a high resolution infrared sensor – to study the rings of Uranus. That application led to the discovery of this new little moon.

Peer into the early universe as light bends around huge galaxy cluster

Legacy content author — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 18:00:00 +0000

Abell S1063 is so massive that the light from distant galaxies bends around it, allowing it to act as a magnifying glass to the early universe

Colourful group of galaxies offers peek into history of the universe

Carl Latter — Thu, 08 May 2025 10:21:20 +0000

There are thousands of galaxies contained in this image, including a cluster that looks to us as it was when the universe was just 6.5 billion years old

Asteroid 2024 YR4 could still hit the moon, JWST observations reveal

Matthew Sparkes — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 15:21:45 +0000

Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to observe asteroid 2024 YR4, which earlier this year seemed to be at risk of hitting Earth in 2032. Earth is now safe, but astronomers are cheering on a possible collision with the moon

Giant Milky Way-like galaxy formed unusually soon after the big bang

James Woodford — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 10:00:36 +0000

The Big Wheel, discovered using the James Webb Space Telescope, formed just 2 billion years after the big bang - surprisingly early for a spiral galaxy of a similar size to our Milky Way

See a shimmering hourglass-shaped star system in exquisite detail

Legacy content author — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 18:00:00 +0000

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the colourful ejections of two protostars at the centre of Lynds 483.

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