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NASA and it’s partners celebrate the first year of the James Webb Telescope operation

The dawn of a new era in astronomy is here as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has taken 30 years and $10bn (£7.5bn) to develop and is being described as one of the grand scientific endeavors of the 21st Century.

This unique telescope, unlike other telescopes which capture images in the visible light spectrum, the JWST captures near-infrared and Mid-infrared light images at light frequencies that the human eye cannot see. The instrumentation on board the James Web Space Telescope includes a Near Infrared Camera, a Mid Infrared Instrument, a Fine Guidance Sensor, and two different Near Infrared Spectrographs.

Launched Dec. 25, 2021, on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, South America. After completing a complex deployment sequence in space, Webb underwent months of commissioning where its mirrors were aligned, and its instruments were calibrated to its space environment and prepared for science.

NASA Headquarters oversees the mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages Webb for the agency and oversees work on the mission performed by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Northrop Grumman, and other mission partners. In addition to Goddard, several NASA centers contributed to the project, including the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and others.


To put distance and size in perspective, the earth and our solar system would be too small to see in this photo.

For more information and details on The James Webb Space Telescope click this link.

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