Super Space Telescope: The James Webb Space Telescope is launched

After several shifts, the James Webb Space Telescope flew into space. December 25, 2021 at around 1:20 pm German time The superlative space telescope was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the spacecraft near Kourou, French Guiana. It is now heading to its observation post in space, about 1.5 million kilometers away, to fathom the universe. It should take about four weeks on the way to the target class.

“The Web has such transformative potential that I think it will mark a new era – a time before and a time after,” NASA manager Jane Rigby said before the start. what technology is on board, when, how and where the telescope should appear in space and what the mission’s goals are, Can be found in the interactive multimedia history of »Spektrum.de«.

JWST should provide new images from the early universe with the help of a 25-square-meter mirror. Astrophysicists also want to observe the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang. The nearly ten billion dollar collaboration between space agencies in the United States, Canada, and Europe is being traded as a successor to the “Hubble” telescope, which has been in use for more than 30 years and has helped astronomers explore many of the universe. insight is provided.

The idea of such a telescope first emerged in the late 1980s, and has been planned and built by teams from NASA, ESA and CSA since then. NASA photographer Chris Gunn documents the progress »Spektrum.de« shows a selection of his paintings in a special presentation. But as with all success, things always went wrong, there were planning delays, the originally estimated cost of about $500 million could not be reached, and the entire project meanwhile was repeatedly questioned. JWST was originally scheduled to be launched in 2007. After 14 years it worked.