James Webb Space Telescope Launches
NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever built, designed to see the first light of the universe.
On December 25, 2021, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, beginning a journey to its observation point 1.5 million km from Earth. The $10 billion observatory — a collaboration between NASA, ESA, and CSA, 25 years in development — features a 6.5-meter gold-coated mirror (over six times the collecting area of Hubble) and instruments sensitive to infrared light. After a flawless deployment of its sunshield and mirror segments — a process with 344 single points of failure — JWST began delivering breathtaking images in July 2022: the deepest infrared view of the universe, atmospheric analysis of exoplanets, and observations of galaxies forming just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. JWST has fundamentally expanded humanity's ability to see across space and time.
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