James Webb Space Telescope is the top science story of 2022

It's the last week of 2022, so it's time for me to look back at the year about to end with retrospectives until New Year's Eve. I'm changing up the order from previous years and beginning this year's series with the year in science. As I have all those years and more, I start my examination with Science Magazine's 2022 Breakthrough of the Year: JWST's golden eye sees the universe anew.

Not many telescopes get introduced by the president, but JWST, the gold-plated wunderkind of astronomy built by NASA with the help of the European and Canadian space agencies, deserves that honor. It is the most complex science mission ever put into space and at $10 billion the most expensive. And it did not come easy.

Science Magazine has more at 2022 Breakthrough of the Year on their website, including nine runners-up and three stories in a category I don't remember seeing before, Breakdowns of the Year. Those include the failure/discontinuance of Zero COVID in China, international conflicts and tensions affecting science cooperation among the major powers, and the war in Ukraine causing an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. I agree; none of these are good news.

WatchMojo compiled their own list of the Top 10 Biggest Scientific Discoveries of 2022.

These scientific discoveries will blow your mind! For this list, we’ll be looking at the most amazing things we learned through scientific research this year. Our countdown includes Brain Cells Playing Video Games, Footprints from the Ice Age, A Detailed View of the Distant Universe, and more! What do you think is the most significant discovery here? Are there any we missed? Tell us in the comments.

WatchMojo added an obvious top ten story in the comments and pinned it.

The discoveries keep coming! On December 13th, researchers announced that they'd managed to produce more energy from a fusion experiment than they'd put in, a groundbreaking step towards abundant clean energy!

That was only one day after WatchMojo uploaded the video. There is such a thing as being too soon. Just the same, I doubt nuclear fusion would have displaced the JWST from the top of either list.

Speaking of the JWST, this post makes for a second installment on the space telescope after Time introduces the 2022 Nobel Prize winners plus the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day. I plan on covering it again tomorrow for 2022 in space, along with the successful DART mission that made both Science Magazine's and WatchMojo's top ten. Stay tuned.