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Rocket Lab launched a classified payload into orbit from New Zealand Wednesday for the National Reconnaissance Office, the first of two back-to-back Rocket Lab missions for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

Rocket Lab’s Electron launcher lifted off from New Zealand Wednesday with classified cargo for the National Reconnaissance Office, the first of two dedicated Rocket Lab flights for the NRO this month. Liftoff occurred at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT).

Among the dazzling images from the James Webb Space Telescope released Tuesday was a squiggly line of spectral data that contained the tell-tale chemical fingerprint of water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere of a scorching hot planet circling a star 1,150 light-years from Earth.

The James Webb Space Telescope’s multi-wavelength observations of the Southern Ring Nebula reveal the dying throes of a star flinging off vast amounts of stellar debris, and showed for the first time the star responsible for the spectacle is sheathed in its own cloak of dust.

The five galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet, prominently featured at the beginning of the holiday film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” were seen with new eyes by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope’s first image of Carina Nebula shows an iconic star-forming cloud of gas and dust 7,600 light-years away, revealing previously unseen vistas of young stars thanks to the new observatory’s sharp-eyed infrared vision.

NASA unveiled more spectacular “first light” pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope Tuesday, showcasing interacting galaxies, the death throes of a doomed star and a stellar nursery where massive young suns are being born, blazing with gale-force solar winds that sculpt vast clouds of gas and dust.

President Biden unveiled the deepest ever look into the distant universe Monday with the release of the first full-color science image from the James Webb Space Telescope, showing thousands of faint galaxies and countless stars shining like lampposts in a tiny patch of the southern sky.