- Subject: NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Space Telescope Science Institute
- period: Now
Launched in December 2021 following 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 regarding 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 go back to when the universe’s first stars and galaxies formed.
The James Webb Space Telescope was tailor-made for such astronomical time travel. The diameter of the reflector is 6.5 meters, three times larger than Hubble’s diameter, giving it much higher resolving power. It has a tennis court-sized shield to protect mirrors and fixtures from the sun’s heat and light. Engineers designed the mirrors and shields to fold and fit inside the rocket fairing to help the James Webb Space Telescope safely reach space. This unfolds following 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 following the Big Bang. But that’s not the only goal of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is used in many areas of astronomy. This might be used to find out what their atmospheres are made of, providing unprecedented insight into planets in other solar systems. It will also witness the birth of new worlds, take magnificent images of nebulae, investigate the structure of galaxies, and much more.
New discoveries are pouring in almost every day, and these discoveries will continue over the telescope’s lifespan, which is estimated at 20 years or more.