What To Expect From NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Launch
On Christmas Day, NASA is gifting astronomers one of the greatest presents it can give by launching the most powerful space telescope ever created. Called the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, the space observatory is meant to be the successor to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope already in orbit around Earth. And it promises to completely transform the way we study the cosmos.
Sporting the biggest mirror of any space-bound telescope ever launched, JWST is tasked with collecting infrared light from some of the most distant stars and galaxies in the Universe. With this capability, the telescope will be able to peer far back in time, imaging some of the earliest objects to have formed just after the Big Bang. On top of that, it will unravel the mysteries of supermassive black holes, distant alien worlds, stellar explosions, dark matter, and more.
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