E-Mail Leicester space scientists will join a group of global experts investigating fundamental questions about our Universe, after being granted time to use the most advanced observatory ever built. A total of 286 scientific targets identified by astronomers and planetary scientists at the University of Leicester were selected from more than 1,000 submitted by researchers from 44 countries, for a portion of the 6,000 observing hours available in the first year of operation (Cycle 1) for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST will launch in late 2021 and will begin delivering a flood of scientific data in 2022, after the spacecraft unfolds its 6.5m-diameter mirror, travels 1.5 million km from Earth, and checks the functioning of all of its instruments.