Kourou: The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope set off on Saturday on an expedition to explore the universe to find early stars and galaxies as well as look for signs of life. US space agency NASA’s ‘James Webb Space Telescope’ took off from the French Guiana Space Center on the north-east coast of South America on Christmas morning aboard the European rocket ‘Arion’.
Built at a cost of about $10 billion, the observatory will travel 1.6 million kilometers, or four times the distance from the Moon, to reach its destination. It will take a month to get there, and then in the next five months its infrared eyes will be ready to start exploring the universe.
“It’s going to give us a better understanding of our universe and our place in it, who we are, what we are,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said earlier this week. However, he also cautioned, “When you want a big reward, you usually have a big risk in front of you.”
As the successor to the older Hubble space telescope, the long-pending James Webb telescope is named after James Webb, a NASA administrator in the 1960s. NASA partnered with European and Canadian space agencies to build and launch this new seven-ton telescope, which has been working by thousands of people in 29 countries since the 1990s.
Astronomers all over the world were eagerly waiting for the launch of this telescope. A last-minute technical glitch affected the launch for almost a week, and then high winds pushed it to Christmas. The people in the control room were wearing Santa hats.
The launch of the telescope was followed by applause at the center and enthusiastic scientists hugging each other. They were shouting the name of the telescope, “Go Webb”. “We launched for humanity this morning,” said Stephen Israel, Arianespace’s chief executive officer, after the launch. The telescope is fitted with several instruments and a mirror plated with gold is also installed in it.