New Delhi: As you read this, Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is already thousands of miles away from Earth, streaking through the void of space after launching successfully atop an Ariane 5 rocket on Saturday from Kourou, French Guiana.
After years of delay and cost overruns, the $10 billion JWST left Earth — its home and all of humanity — finally, rising above the European Space Agency (ESA) spaceport, surrounded by tropical rainforests, on way to its destination, a million miles away from our planet.
Once positioned in its planned orbit around the Sun and with all systems functioning, the JWST, dubbed a “time machine”, will peer 13.8 million years back in time — on a cosmic scale, only a “few” years short of the Big Bang moment — to answer, as Nasa administrator Bill Nelson put it: “Who we are, what we are, the search that’s eternal.”
The launch of JWST heralds a new dawn in astronomy. More powerful than Hubble, it promises to unlock answers about the origin of the universe and also our own.
“We have delivered a Christmas gift to humanity,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.
Twenty-seven minutes after liftoff, the telescope separated from Arian’s upper stage. Its solar arrays have already unfurled, said reports.
But before JWST can #UnfoldTheUniverse, the giant telescope, which had to be folded to fit inside the rocket, has to unfurl successfully, which has been described by Nasa as “the most complex sequence of deployments ever attempted in a single space mission”.
Launch over, scientists will now focus on the unfurling of its folded gold-tinted mirrors, tennis court-sized sunshield and other critical parts over the coming weeks and months before JWST begins to answer life’s ‘big questions’.
Bhubaneswar: Odisha government on Sunday transferred Superintendent of Police (SPs) of 23 districts and posted…
Bhubaneswar: Odisha athletes bagged three gold medals on Day 2 of the 4th U-23 National Open…
London: Rishi Sunak had his time under the sun, serving as British Prime Minister from October…
Bhubaneswar: In a major reshuffle among IPS officers, the Odish government has appointed Suresh Dev…
Bhubaneswar: The Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) honoured Dr Achyuta Samanta with the ‘Iconic…
New Delhi: In their mission to eliminate Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, how did Israel…
Puri: Fear of bird flu outbreak spread as some crows were found dead at different…
Surat: Late monsoon fury is taking its toll on cricket. For the third straight day,…