James Webb Telescope Which Can See Past

James Webb Space Telescope Launches Successfully.

NASA's Space Telescope, named after its former chief, James Webb, launched on Christmas night from French Guiana.

The $ 10 billion space observatory has already successfully separated from the Ariane 5 launch vehicle and is on its way to its orbit - 1.6 million kilometers from Earth: four times the distance of the Moon. It will take a month and another five for deployment and various technical procedures before the telescope begins to receive and transmit information.

The Webb weighs over 6 tons and measures approximately 20 meters by 14 meters. At the start, the telescope's main mirror, 6.5 meters in diameter, and the sun visor were folded in origami style to fit into the rocket nose cone. If all goes well, a visor will be deployed three days after launch, vital for keeping the mirror and heat-sensitive infrared detectors in good working order. It will take at least five days to open and fix it. The gilded mirror segments should then open - after about 12 days of flight.

The telescope was created in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies, and thousands of people from 29 countries have worked on the project since the 1990s. Last-minute technical glitches delayed the launch by nearly a week, and then gusty weather forced it to be rescheduled for Christmas. The launch controllers wore festive Santa Claus hats, but fewer than expected spectators gathered at the launch site in French Guiana due to the holiday and the pandemic.

The new telescope is named after James Webb, who led NASA from 1961 to 1968. The device will continue the research carried out by its predecessor, the Hubble telescope, but will operate in the infrared range and therefore will be able to look even further into the past of the Universe for 13.7 billion years, that is, at the time of 200-100 million years after the so-called Big Bang, which formed our world.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has called the James Webb telescope a time machine that will provide "a better understanding of our universe and our place in it."

“We're going to discover incredible things that we never even imagined,” Nelson said after the launch, speaking at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But he warned, "There are countless things that need to work, and they need to work perfectly ... We know there is a huge risk behind great joy."

Astronomers around the world have been anxiously awaiting when Webb will finally go into space. “Today we have delivered a Christmas present to humanity,” said European Space Agency CEO Josef Aschbacher, adding. - This is too exciting a moment. I would not be able to carry out launches every God's day: it would not benefit my health! "

The launch went flawlessly, and the scientists and engineers hugged each other while shouts of "Go Webb!" Cameras on the upper stage of the launch vehicle allowed one last glimpse of the telescope before it sailed into a distant orbit.

Astronaut Stephen Hawley said that he worries about Webb even more than about Hubble, which he personally sent into orbit from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery in 1990: Webb will be too far away for repairs, unlike from the "Hubble", to which the shuttles have repeatedly flown. Today NASA is targeting a 10-year lifespan for the new telescope, but engineers have deliberately made its fuel tank available for refueling so that when the technology becomes available, the telescope can be visited and serviced.

Former astronaut Hawley, now professor emeritus at the University of Kansas, said: “When we launched the Hubble, I would never have believed it would still work almost 32 years from now .. hopefully in 32 years we can say the same and about Webb.