NASA and the astronomy community invested a whopping $10 billion over two decades to build the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)  — the world’s most advanced and powerful astronomical instrument. 

While the telescope has been actively collecting data and providing new insights and discoveries about the universe, a renowned expert highlights that Webb’s findings have left us with more questions than answers.

Professor Steven Andrew Balbus exclusively spoke to Interesting Engineering (IE) during the inaugural 2023 Hong Kong Laureate Forum. He is the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford and a professorial fellow at New College, Oxford. 

When asked about any exceptional breakthroughs in astrophysics because of this telescope, he told IE: “I would say no breakthrough, but there are problems that we didn’t realize were problems. So there are problems to work on, rather than answers to be handed to us.”