The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched last December. This is truly one of the most amazing scientific missions ever attempted. It was sent 1 million miles into space (four times as far as the Moon) to a location known as L2 (the 2nd of 5 Lagrange points). At L2 the telescope does not orbit the Earth, instead it orbits the Sun but remains in a stationary location relative to the Earth, which is pretty cool.
It is much larger than the aging Hubble telescope.
It is much larger than the aging Hubble telescope.
JWST is extremely complex. The six month process to deploy and calibrate has progressed flawlessly. The telescope utilizes multiple sun-shields to reflect sunlight and keep it extremely cold. The mirror array is so large that it was launched folded-up.
The telescope has been sending back images for a couple of months. The final instrument, the Mid-Infrared Instrument has finally been cooled to it's operating temperature of less than 7 Kelvin (i.e. minus 447 degrees F).
I'll be writing periodic updates as JWST becomes fully operational.
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