- Subject: NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute
- period: Now
Launched in December 2021 after decades of work, NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope was created in partnership with the United States, Europe and Canada. It is the largest telescope ever sent into space and is about 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s also specially designed to detect infrared light, so it can cut through dust and trace back to when the universe’s first stars and galaxies formed.
The James Webb Space Telescope was tailor-made for such astronomical time travel. At 6.5 meters in diameter, the reflector is three times the size of Hubble’s, giving it much higher resolving power. It has a screen the size of a tennis court to protect the mirrors and window frames from the heat and sunlight. Engineers designed the mirrors and shields to fold and fit inside the rocket fairing to help the James Webb Space Telescope get to space safely. This will take place post-launch as the telescope moves into its final target orbit, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Astronomers hope to use the James Webb Space Telescope to piece together the puzzle of how the universe’s first galaxies formed after the Big Bang. But this is not the only lens of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is used in many areas of astronomy. This could be used to find out what their atmospheres are made of, providing unprecedented insights into planets in other solar systems. He will also witness the birth of new worlds, take magnificent images of nebulae, investigate the structure of galaxies and much more.
New discoveries pour in almost every day, and these discoveries will continue throughout the life of the telescope, which is estimated to be 20 years or more.
