James Webb Space Telescope
JWST — the infrared flagship observatory, halo-orbiting the Sun–Earth L2 point.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NASA / ESA / CSA
- Launched
- December 25, 2021
- Status
- Active
Trajectory
- Speed rel. Earth
- 384 m/s
- Computed from the cached state vector, relative to Earth
- Distance from the Sun
- 1 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 1,309,659 km
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.286 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Cost & funding
- Program cost
- $1.00 × 10¹⁰ USD
Mission
The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most powerful observatory ever sent into space, built to capture the infrared light of the most distant objects in the universe. A joint project of NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, two decades in the making and costing around ten billion dollars, it launched on 25 December 2021. Its 6.5-metre mirror — made of eighteen gold-coated segments — and a five-layer sunshield the size of a tennis court were too big to fly open, so they had to unfold in space through a nerve-wracking sequence of hundreds of single steps, any one of which could have crippled the mission. Every step worked. Unlike Hubble, which orbits Earth, Webb travelled to the L2 point 1.5 million kilometres out, where it can stay cold and stare into deep space. Its first full-colour images, released in July 2022, showed the sharpest infrared view of the early universe ever captured. Since then it has peered back toward the cosmic dawn, finding galaxies that formed surprisingly early and bright, probed the chemistry of exoplanet atmospheres — detecting carbon dioxide and water on distant worlds — and watched stars being born inside clouds of dust opaque to ordinary telescopes. Working alongside the ageing Hubble, Webb has opened a new window on the cosmos, and is expected to operate for two decades.
- 2021Webb launches on an Ariane 5 rocketLaunch
The largest space telescope ever built lifts off from French Guiana on Christmas Day.
- 2022Arrives at L2, a gravitational parking spot beyond Earth's shadowArrival
Settles into orbit 1.5 million km from Earth after flawlessly unfolding its mirror and sunshield.
- 2022Webb's first deep fieldMilestone
Releases the deepest, sharpest infrared image of the distant universe yet taken.
- 2022Webb detects carbon dioxide on exoplanet WASP-39bMilestone
Makes the first clear detection of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet's atmosphere — the hot 'Saturn' WASP-39b, about 700 light-years away.
- 2023Webb confirms galaxies from the cosmic dawnMilestone
Confirms some of the earliest, most distant galaxies ever seen, surprising cosmologists.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image