NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will look across vast distances to find the earliest stars and galaxies and study the atmospheres of mysterious worlds orbiting other stars. But the observatory also will investigate objects in Earth’s own neighborhood – planets, moons, comets and asteroids in our solar system.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is already providing new insights into this question. NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Peers Behind Bars Jun 2, 2023 - A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the James Webb Space Telescope.

It is a misconception that the first telescope was invented by Galileo Galilei because the real inventor of the telescope was Hans Lippershey. Lippershey was a German glassmaker who minimized the volume of light that filled it while focusing it. Other researchers were motivated by his idea to concentrate on improving the telescope.