NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – the largest, most powerful and most advanced ever built – will be launched into space today (Saturday) and begin its unprecedented mission: to provide an unprecedented glimpse into distant regions of the universe that will reveal new information about the Big Bang and galaxy formation And the celestial bodies and may even make it possible to discover extraterrestrial life.
The launch will be made using the Arian 5 rocket, on which the new telescope will be mounted, which will take off from the European Space Agency’s base in French Guiana on the east coast of South America. If everything goes according to plan, the telescope will detach from the rocket after a 26-minute journey into space. The telescope will then embark on a journey of about a month until it stabilizes at the designated orbit, 1.5 million km from Earth, and begins to operate its facilities.
The telescope, an international venture built at a cost of more than $ 10 billion over more than 25 years in partnership with 20 countries, will provide humanity with the best observational capabilities ever developed. Its main objectives are to study the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars and planets with the help of observations of distant celestial bodies, which to this day humanity has not been able to observe. It is considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched about 30 years ago and provided humanity with unprecedented information about space.
- The most beautiful there is: Get the parade of favorite puzzles for 2021
The telescope will be able to look into the depths of the universe, where you can learn about the first stages after the Big Bang, try to identify the signatures of the first light in the universe, as well as how galaxies are formed and how stars are born and explore the planets in and out of the solar system. Another goal of the Revolutionary Telescope will be an attempt to answer the question that has preoccupied humanity for centuries: Is there another extraterrestrial life?
The telescope features four scientific facilities that allow observations of red light in long, regular longitudinal waves, and has a huge tennis court the size of a tennis court and a 6.5-meter-diameter mirror, the largest ever launched into space, covered in gold to help reflect infrared light.
As mentioned, the huge project that is considered by many to be one of humanity’s greatest achievements is the product of a joint effort by NASA, the US Space Agency, and the European and Canadian space agencies, as well as 20 countries including Austria, Italy, Ireland, USA, Belgium, Germany , Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Finland, the Czech Republic, France, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland.
.