James Webb Space Telescope
Nasa launches $10bn James Webb space telescope James Webb Space Telescope
The most ambitious, costly robot probe ever built, the $10bn James Webb telescope, has been blasted into space on top of a giant European rocket.
Nasa launches $10bn James Webb space telescope
Engineers reported on Saturday that the observatory – which has been plagued by decades of delays and huge cost overruns – was operating perfectly after going through the most nervously watched lift-off in the history of uncrewed space exploration.
Described as a “time machine” by scientists, the telescope will allow astronomers to study the beginning of the universe shortly after the big bang, 13.8 billion years ago, and to hunt for signs of life-supporting planets in our own galaxy.
“We have delivered a Christmas gift to humanity,” said the European Space Agency’s director general, Josef Aschbacher. “With this telescope we are enabling new science. This was a special moment, nerve-racking but successful in the end.” This point was backed by Nasa’s administrator, Bill Nelson. “It’s going to give us a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search that’s eternal.”
The James Webb telescope began its journey into space at exactly 12.20 GMT when the solid fuel boosters of its huge Ariane 5 launcher were ignited. On top of a fiery plume of thick smoke, the rocket rose above the tropical rainforest that surrounds the Esa centre in Kourou, French Guiana, and within a minute had disappeared into the thick clouds overhead.
After 27 minutes of powered flight, the telescope separated from its launcher’s upper stage and was placed precisely into its planned trajectory. The manoeuvre was greeted with tumultuous applause from flight controllers in Kourou. Jubilant scientists – some wearing Santa hats – hugged each other and held up signs that read “Bon Voyage Webb”.
Once in orbit, the telescope’s solar arrays were unfurled and the observatory began its million-mile voyage to its final destination, a region of deep space where it can be kept stationary in roughly the same position in the sky. Cameras on the rocket’s upper stage provided one last glimpse of the shimmering telescope before it sped into deep space.
Designed as a replacement for the Hubble space telescope – still in operation after its 1990 launch – the James Webb telescope is a far bigger and much more complex instrument with many more ambitious goals. For a start, it will not study the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum – as does the Hubble and most ground-based telescopes – but only infra-red radiation. As a result, it has had to be fitted with complex shielding and cooling equipment to hide its instruments from solar radiation that would otherwise trigger spurious signals.
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