Habitable Worlds Observatory

Common card · No. 251248

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a proposed flagship space telescope for NASA Astrophysics that will build on the achievements of the Hubble, James Webb, and Nancy Grace Roman space telescopes. Intended to search for signs of life on Earth-like exoplanets, HWO will observe the sky in ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths to explore the origin of galaxies and elements, and habitability of exoplanets. Its primary mission would be to search for and image Earth-size exoplanets in the habitable zones of their stars, where liquid water can exist, by using a coronagraph or a starshade to block out the light of their stars. The proposed launch date is in the 2040s. The estimated cost is at least $11 billion. On April 3, 2026, the Trump administration released the 2027 budget proposal for NASA, requesting $5 million for HWO, down from the $150 million enacted by Congress in FY 2026.

Read on Wikipedia · Image NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - eMITS/Walt Feimer, eMITS/Jenny McElligott, eMITS/Kim Dongjae, eMITS/Jonathan North, ADNET Systems, Inc./Aaron E. Lepsch, eMITS/Scott Wiessinger, NASA/GSFC/Cla…, Public domain