Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s first year of interstellar observation, an international team of researchers was able to serendipitously view an exploding supernova in a faraway spiral galaxy. Credit: NASA STSCI
Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s first year of interstellar observation, an international team of researchers was able to serendipitously view an exploding supernova in a faraway spiral galaxy. Credit: NASA STSCI

On May 2, the Trump administration announced its intention to impose massive cuts on the Science directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), reducing its budget from $7.3 billion in 2025 to $3.8 billion in FY2026. These cuts will almost certainly entail the abandonment of the Curiosity rover, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Voyager and New Horizon interstellar probes, among others, and derail almost all plans for future American planetary exploration and astronomy missions. Among the cancellations will be the Roman Space Telescope, built at a cost of $4 billion and currently undergoing final assembly in preparation for launch next year, and the Mars Sample Return mission. The Webb Space Telescope, launched just a few years ago and which recently detected a potential biosignature in the atmosphere of an exoplanet orbiting a star 124 light-years away, will have its operations sharply curtailed.

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