Credit: SpaceNews generated Midjourney illustration

At the 241st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle in January, many astronomers celebrated while getting down to work. The conference, one of the biggest for the field, was the first since the James Webb Space Telescope formally started science operations last July after completing six months of post-launch commissioning.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...