James Webb Space Telescope Launches

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.