Think only professional astronomers will have access to the James Webb Space Telescope? Think again!

Three citizen scientists—members of the public—have discovered new astronomical objects that Webb will soon view. One of these volunteers is a co-investigator on a winning Webb proposal.

Later today, NASA, in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, will release the first full-color images and spectroscopic data from the James Webb Space Telescope. But long before then, citizen scientists at Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 were working hard to find new nearby objects that Webb could follow-up. The citizen scientists who discovered Webb targets all work on this citizen science project.

"Even though the process was occasionally painstaking, it was worth it," said Arttu Sainio, who discovered a new object that Webb will examine. Sainio's discovery is a "brown dwarf," a ball of gas too cool to be considered a star, a key to understanding exoplanets. "I end up discovering hundreds of brown dwarf candidates and many of them have been followed up and researched." Citizen scientists Melina Thevenot and Dan Caselden also discovered brown dwarfs Webb will study.

One look at the Planetary Decadal Survey for 2023–2032, and you will see some bold and cutting-edge mission proposals for the coming decade. Examples include a Uranus orbiter and probe (UOP) that would study Uranus' interior, atmosphere, magnetosphere, satellites, and rings; and an Enceladus orbiter and surface lander to study the active plumes emanating from Enceladus' southern polar region. Not to be outdone, China is also considering a nuclear-powered Neptune Explorer to explore the ice giant, its largest moon (Triton), and its other satellites and rings.

The mission was the subject of a study conducted by researchers from the China National Space Agency (CNSA), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the China Atomic Energy Authority, the China Academy of Space Technology, and multiple universities and institutes.

After exploring Mars for more than a year, China's Tianwen-1 space probe has successfully taken images covering the entire Red Planet, China's National Space Administration (CNSA) announced on June 29. Tianwen-1, which translates to "quest for heavenly truth," consists of six separate spacecraft: an orbiter, two deployable cameras, lander, remote camera, and Zhurong rover. The images in question were taken by the orbiter while circling Mars 1,344 times, capturing images of the Red Planet from every angle while Zhurong explored the surface. in the statement, CNSA said the probe has now completed all of its tasks, which included taking medium-resolution images covering the entire planet.

Tianwen-1 was launched on July 23, 2020, amidst the turmoil of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

When Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter 400 years ago, he saw three blobs of light around the giant planet, which he at first thought were fixed stars.

After unveiling the clearest view yet of the distant cosmos, the James Webb Space Telescope has more to come.

The next wave of images on Tuesday will reveal details about the atmosphere of a faraway gas planet, a "stellar nursery" where stars form, a "quintet" of galaxies locked in a dance of close encounters, and the cloud of gas around a dying star.

They will be published starting from 10:30 am Eastern Time (1430 GMT), in an event live streamed from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, just outside Washington.

Targets include Carina Nebula, a stellar nursery, famous for its towering pillars that include "Mystic Mountain," a three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle captured in an iconic image by Hubble.

Webb has also carried out a spectroscopy—an analysis of light that reveals detailed information—on a gas giant planet called WASP-96 b, which was discovered in 2014.

Nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, WASP-96 b is about half the mass of Jupiter and zips around its star in just 3.4 days.