The romantic image of the astronomer in solitude peering through the eyepiece of a small telescope, scrutinising the mysteries of the sky, has passed into the history of the profession. Nowadays we hardly touch telescopes; either they are too big or they are in space. Nor do we work alone. More than 20,000 people from all over the world have been involved in the project to deploy the Webb telescope 1.5 million kilometres away.  It is large, international teams with lots of public funding that can build the infrastructures needed to answer the big questions: What are the planets made of? How are galaxies built? What is the furthest thing we can observe? How did the universe emerge from the dark ages to form the first stars and galaxies? 
 
Many years go into the study and design of a telescope like JWST. And it is, in my opinion, an act of generosity for future generations and for the rest of humanity. The people who start the search for funding for such an infrastructure and with the design of the scientific experiment are often not the ones who will later work with the first data. You start today and see the first light taken by the telescope at least 20 years later.  
 
The most powerful infrared telescope ever built is working well, better than specified for its construction, and in half a year of operation the data taken with JWST have already begun to shake the foundations of what we knew. They show us what we could not see until now and, in many cases, it is not what we expected. Such is science. In just six months it has already found the most distant galaxies, observed the impact plume generated by a human device to deflect an asteroid, or revealed the molecular and chemical profile of an extrasolar planet's atmosphere. It fascinates me to think, for example, that JWST will revolutionise our knowledge of a field of study: extrasolar planets and their atmospheres, which did not even exist when it was conceived on paper. 

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