[MUSIC PLAYING] Webb's stunning images of space have captured our imagination, but they're only part of the story. About 75% of Webb's observations produce a powerful type of data called spectra. Spectra are created by separating light into its many colors, which can reveal clues about the light's source. 

This is possible because every material, whether it's iron, oxygen, or something else, interacts with light in its own way, leaving a unique pattern of bright or dark lines across the rainbow of colors in its spectrum. By analyzing these patterns through a process called spectroscopy, scientists can use Webb's spectral data to uncover extraordinary details about objects millions of light years away, including motion, temperature, chemical composition, density and pressure, and sometimes even distance. 

While human eyes can see a narrow band of colors called visible light, Webb's instruments detect mostly infrared light, which can pass through dust and reveal objects too cool or too distant to shine with visible light. Webb's spectroscopic instruments are so precise, they can separate light into thousands of distinct colors, letting scientists detect even very subtle chemical fingerprints. 

With the most sensitive infrared spectrographs in existence, Webb can see the chemical makeup of galaxies as they existed billions of years ago or capture the faint patterns from chemicals in a planet's atmosphere hundreds of light years away. 

With spectroscopy, Webb is revealing details we've never seen before. For the first time ever, Webb measured morning-to-evening changes in cloud cover on an exoplanet, WASP-39b, a huge step toward understanding weather patterns on worlds beyond our solar system. 

Webb has also identified the earliest and most distant galaxies ever discovered, light that's traveled for more than 13.5 billion years. By revealing their distance and chemical makeup via spectroscopy, Webb is helping us understand how the first galaxies formed and where the elements that make up everything, including us, began. 

Closer to home, Webb's detailed spectra led astronomers to map carbon dioxide on Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, Europa. The mapping confirmed that the carbon, a key ingredient for life, likely comes from Europa's vast subsurface ocean. 

By analyzing infrared light, Webb has uncovered some of the earliest supermassive black holes ever seen and, for the first time, revealed how massive they are compared to the galaxies they live in. By measuring how gas swirls around them, Webb can essentially weigh these black holes and show how they and their galaxies evolve together, which can help us understand the processes that shaped our own Milky Way. 

Alongside its stunning images, Webb spectra help us see deeper and learn more about the cosmos. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a spectrum? That's worth at least a thousand pictures.