World's largest space telescope named James Webb has blasted off to behold light from stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life.
The telescope departed from French Guiana on South America’s northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the morning sky on Saturday.
The $9bn observatory hurtled towards its destination 1.6 million kilometres away. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos, Aljazeera reported.
First, the telescope’s enormous mirror and sunshield need to unfurl; they were folded origami-style to fit into the rocket’s nose cone. Otherwise, the observatory will not be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years as anticipated, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang, it was indicated.
“It’s going to give us a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search that’s eternal,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.
He also cautioned, “When you want a big reward, you have to usually take a big risk.”
The historic mission which has revolutionised astronomy revolutionised is going to allow scientists to peer back in time to the early stages of our universe, Aljazeera's Manuel Rapalo reported from Kourou.
“Scientists are also going to be able to examine the atmospheres of planets and determine whether or not planets could not only be habitable and suitable for humans to possibly one day colonise, but to determine whether or not those conditions are optimal for life,” he said.
“We hope that we can now see the first galaxies formed in the universe almost 13-and-a-half billion years ago,” noted Klaus Pontipiddan, one of the scientists involved in the Webb Project.
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