Any longer, the committee concluded, and most of the data collected during the first year of observing, known as cycle 1, would be unavailable to astronomers trying to plan what to look for in cycle 2, or even some of cycle 3.Webb planners did, however, adopt the committee’s suggestion to provide immediate access to a key subset of data: 500 hours of observations made during the first 5 months of cycle 1, covering all Webb’s key science areas and employing all its instruments and observing modes.Although the ERS data are helping many plan future observations, most cycle 1 data are still locked up and some will remain so until the second half of 2024.If their Webb observations were publicly released straight away, they could be scooped by teams at large, well-resourced research institutions before they had a chance to analyze the data over the summer, for example.Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona, principal investigator of Webb’s near-infrared camera, favors the opposite: giving everyone proprietary time with the expectation"