The political news these days is enough to make some of us wish they were a million miles away. But consider this: Even in the depths of space, there’s no escape from politics.
The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is literally parked 1 million miles away. In the nearly three years since it became operational, “Webb,” as it’s called, has made some incredible findings.
Webb uses infrared scanning to show how stars and galaxies form, and to study the atmospheres of distant planets. Its capabilities complement the aging Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth at an altitude of only 340 miles or so.
Among other discoveries, Webb has uncovered the slow-motion process of a star engulfing a planet and provided data about an asteroid traveling at high speed in our direction (It will miss us).
You might think any U.S. president would view this as an asset. Alas, like so much of the country’s ongoing scientific research, Webb is at risk of being defunded.
President Donald Trump’s administration has removed NASA’s top scientist and proposed a nearly 50% budget cut to the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, which oversees planetary science, astrophysics research and more.
