London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Sep 28, 2025

The James Webb Space Telescope is flying free of its Ariane 5 launcher after a “perfect flight” into space, NASA says

The James Webb Space Telescope, a NASA-led international collaboration that took nearly 30 years and $10 billion to get to the launch pad, finally left Earth with a Christmas morning rocket ride from a European spaceport in South America, setting off on a mission to hunt for the first light in the universe. That was just the easy part.
The $9bn observatory seeks out faint light from the first stars and galaxies, providing a glimpse into cosmic creation.

“Webb’s scientific promise is now closer than it ever has been,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science division. “We are poised on the edge of a truly exciting time of discovery, of things we’ve never before seen or imagined.”

The telescope’s launch, running more than a decade late, had NASA officials and astronomers around the world on the edge of their seats. It’s not likely they will come off the edge until the transformer telescope finishes an unprecedented sequence of deployments to prepare for scientific observations.

“The easy part is done, now the work starts,” said Massimo Stiavelli, head of the Webb mission office at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. The institute, located on the campus of Johns Hopkins University, is home to Webb mission control.

The three-story-tall Webb observatory was folded up like an origami to fit inside the confines of its European Ariane 5 rocket, which was selected, in part, because it has one of the largest payload volumes of any active launch vehicle.

Now that Webb is in space, the observatory will deploy and unfurl a thermal shield the size of a tennis court, swing its mirrors into place, and gradually cool down to minus 388 degrees Fahrenheit, just 40 degrees above absolute zero, a theoretical temperature limit in thermodynamics.

Then the telescope’s sensitive infrared detectors and instrument electronics have to work. Ground teams will labor to bring the telescope’s 18 primary mirror segments into focus, an effort that could take months. Around 250,000 opening and closing windows the width of a few human hairs, called microshutters, will be calibrated to cast light detector arrays onto detector arrays.

That’s just a sampling of the pioneering technology on-board Webb. If it all works, the mission will boast 100 times the observing power of the Hubble Space Telescope, the last astronomical observatory that rivaled Webb in the scale of its ambitions.

Thanks to its ability to fold up for launch, Webb’s primary mirror will span 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) across in space, making it the largest telescope ever to leave Earth. Webb’s mirror consists of 18 individual hexagonal segments, each made of beryllium and coated in gold to aid in reflectivity.

Hubble’s monolithic mirror has a diameter of about 7.9 feet (2.4 meters).
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
Explosive Email Shows Sarah Ferguson Begged Forgiveness from Jeffrey Epstein After Taking His Money
Corrupt UK Politician Ed Davey Demands Elon Musk’s Arrest for Supporting Democracy
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Alibaba Debuts Open-Source Deep Research Agent with Benchmarks Rivaling OpenAI
Marcos Faces Legacy-Defining Crisis as Flood Projects Scandal Sparks Massive Tide of Protests
China’s Micro-Drama Boom Turns Stalled Real Estate Projects into Lavish Film Sets
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
'Company Got 5,189 H-1B Visas, Then Laid Off 16,000 Americans': US Defends New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Golf legend tells Omar she should be 'sent back to Somalia' after her Kirk comments
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
×