- [Narrator] Let's revisit three
of this year's biggest space stories.
The James Webb Space Telescope,
the most powerful space telescope ever built,
sent back stunning images of nebulas, galaxies,
closeups of Neptune and Jupiter,
and even chemical signatures
in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.
As the first images came in, scientists were blown away.
- This is an engineering image
that was really there just to say, we focused it right,
and there's a lot of galaxies, you know?
You know, the the engineers were like,
what are all those galaxies doing there?
We're realizing we're the first people
that have ever seen these galaxies.
- [Jane] Everything about these images
that I've seen so far tells us,
absolutely, this thing is going to be fantastic.
- We don't know what we're going to see,
but we know we haven't seen anything like this before.
- This is going to be transformative.
This is looking amazing.
- I almost have no words, you know, in that sense,
because it's, it's the feat of engineering, right?
But it's also, wow, our universe is beautiful.
The great thing is that really, this is just the beginning.
Today is just the beginning.
We'll be able to go much, much deeper,
and this telescope is going to do what we designed it to do.
- [Narrator] JWST's infrared technology
can peer through dense clouds of space dust
that block visible light, revealing secrets of the universe.
- This is the biggest telescope
that has been built in space,
and because of the complexity of the design,
this is, no doubt, the most complex machine,
and it is magnificent.
- [Narrator] Scientists expect JWST to deliver
years of discoveries about the early universe,
and the first galaxies, how stars and planets evolved,
and the atmospheres of exoplanets.
- It's taken us a long time to get here,
but man, we're so excited.
- [Narrator] This year, NASA put earth's defense strategy
against dangerous asteroids to the test.
- We want to know whether or not
we will be able to redirect an asteroid.
- We have a fantastic team of planetary defenders,
trying to find the near-earth asteroids
that perhaps pose an impact threat.
- [Narrator] In the first mission of its kind,
NASA's DART spacecraft crashed into an asteroid,
in an attempt to change its trajectory.
Scientists targeted Dimorphos,
a 530-foot diameter asteroid moonlet,
orbiting around a larger asteroid called Didymous.
Neither one is considered a danger to Earth.
- [Elena] We are testing out
a technique called kinetic impactor.
About four hours out, before the impact,
the spacecraft becomes fully-autonomous,
point itself towards the moon
make all the maneuvers necessary to slam itself
into this really small object.
- [Narrator] Future missions like these could potentially
deflect asteroids headed towards Earth.
- It is very impressive. And hard.
- [Narrator] One of the most anticipated
space events this year was finally launching Artemis 1,
the first of NASA's new Artemis program,
Artemis 1 tested two deep space exploration systems,
including the Orion spacecraft,
which splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11th.
This tech may be used in future missions
to send humans back to the moon.
- Who doesn't want to go back to the moon?
I mean, come on.
It's a stepping stone to the rest of our future.
- [Narrator] NASA scientists hope to establish
a more permanent presence on the moon,
and use it as a stepping stone
to explore deeper into space, including Mars.
- We need to go there, learn how to live,
and work sustainably off-Earth.
A lot of people would like to go on to Mars,
but we have a lot of experience to get under the belt
before we can do that journey to Mars.
- [Narrator] In 2023, the space exploration continues.
SpaceX plans to launch the Polaris Dawn Mission,
which will include the first commercial spacewalk.
And NASA plans to launch the Psyche spacecraft,
an orbiter mission that will explore the asteroid Psyche.
- It sounds like living in a science fiction movie,
but we are not living in that anymore.
This is science. This is real.
(dramatic music)