What You Need to Know About the James Webb Telescope

The massive JWST, as it's called, has been decades in the making and is scheduled to launch on Christmas Eve.

Jeremy Kariuki

Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 02:28 PM ET

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The JWST was conceptualized as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Courtesy: NASA

Key Takeaways:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is NASA's largest and most powerful infrared observatory, designed to observe the universe's earliest stars and galaxies by capturing faint, redshifted light from the cosmos's infancy.
It features an immense 6.6-meter gold-coated primary mirror array optimized for infrared detection and a five-layer heat shield the size of a tennis court to maintain its instruments at extremely cold temperatures.
The JWST will operate a million miles from Earth at the Lagrange Point 2 (L2) to ensure continuous thermal shielding, with its complex, non-repairable two-week unfolding process post-launch being a critical, high-stakes event.

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The world is on the brink of a new age of space exploration, thanks to the decades-long development of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Packed with cutting-edge technology, the massive telescope is set to launch next week.

But what makes the JWST so important? And why has it taken so long to produce? With those answers and more, here’s everything you need to know about the JWST.