Where is the James Webb Space Telescope right now?
The James Webb Space Telescope is currently about 1,552,416 kilometres from Earth, or 5.2 light-seconds away. That is roughly four times further out than the Moon, on the side of Earth facing away from the Sun.
Webb does not orbit Earth. It orbits a point in empty space, the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point about 1.5 million km out, circling that point once every six months on a loop that carries it between roughly 250,000 and 832,000 km from it. The orbit keeps the Sun, Earth and Moon all behind the sunshield at once, which is the only way to hold a 6.5 m mirror below 50 kelvin.
It launched on 25 December 2021 on an Ariane 5, reached L2 a month later, and finished commissioning in July 2022.
That launch is worth a sentence of its own. The rocket flew accurately enough that Webb spent far less than the budgeted propellant getting into position, and propellant for station-keeping is what sets the telescope's lifetime. The precision of one launch roughly doubled it, from a planned ten years to an estimate closer to twenty.
Its fifth observing cycle began on 1 July 2026 and runs to 30 June 2027. Astronomers submitted 2,930 proposals for it, more than any major observatory has ever received in one call; 254 were accepted, sharing about 8,000 hours. Whatever it is pointed at right now came off that list.
Roman launched on 30 August 2026 and is three months out from the same Lagrange point, where it will share the region with Webb. For where it is now, see the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.