The United States Space Agency (NASA) successfully launched the James Webb Space Telescope on Christmas Day, Saturday (25/12). The spacecraft is ready to reveal aliens.
James Webb was launched from the runway in French Guiana, South America, using an Ariana 5 rocket, as reported by Space, Sunday (12/26/2021).
"Go, Webb, Go!," said flight controller Arianaspace while taking off, filled with cheers for the successful launch.
The space telescope is the most expensive at a cost of USD 10 billion with almost three decades of manufacture. James Webb is also the most sophisticated so the most sophisticated to replace Hubble which is considered obsolete.
Previously, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, James Webb on the mission revealed that NASA was worried about the departure of the spacecraft. Because, the importance and complexity of the observatory in working on this telescope is very big done by NASA.
"If successful, this is the most advanced technology that will unlock the secrets of the incredible universe, making a quantum leap in understanding who we are, how we are here, who we are, and how everything evolved," he said.
The James Webb Space Telescope was first created by a group of astronomers who met at the Institute for Space Telescope Science in Baltimore in September 1989.
They contemplated a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, even though at that time, Hubble had not yet launched. The telescope just took off on April 24, 1990.
The process of making a space telescope takes a long time, from the planning stage to going into assembly. That's what astronomers do in working on this project.
The James Webb Space Telescope was designed to be able to see the universe further, as well as into the past, than has been observed so far. Also exoplanets that have not been detected so far.
The super telescope is expected to detect light from the first stars that shone in the universe about 13.5 billion years ago.