Move over, Hubble. On Saturday, NASA plans to launch the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built.
As big as a tennis court and 100 times as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope will reveal the outer reaches of the universe in more detail than ever before. Webb could “open a new eye to the cosmos,” said Dr. Rogier Windhorst, regents’ professor at Arizona State University and a James Webb interdisciplinary scientist since 2002.
In addition to providing fresh insights into our own solar system, the new telescope—with its giant golden mirror and infrared eyes—will go beyond what Hubble can see and capture images of some of the very first stars and galaxies as they appeared more than 13.5 billion years ago, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NASA said Tuesday that the launch, initially scheduled for Friday, would be postponed until Saturday because of bad weather at the launch site in French Guiana.
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Seeing red
Hubble is NASA’s Energizer bunny, Dr. Windhorst said. In the 31 years since its launch in 1990, Hubble has taken more than 1.5 million photos, helped reveal that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and extended our understanding of how planets form.
Read more: WSJ
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