By Steve Gorman

(Reuters] – NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was launched from South America’s northeast coast on Saturday.

NASA hailed the infrared telescope as the most important space-science observatory in the next decade. It was packed inside an Ariane 5 rocket’s cargo bay, ready for launch at 7:20 AM EST (1220 GMT) from French Guiana’s European Space Agency (ESA).

The 14,000-pound device, which is almost as big as a tennis court when it unfolds, will be lifted from the rocket by French engineers after 26 minutes of space travel.

The Webb telescope will be cruising to its solar orbit destination approximately 1,000,000 miles away from Earth over the next month. This is four times the distance of the moon. Webb will be in perfect alignment with Earth due to its unique orbital route as it circles the sun.

Webb’s 30 year-old predecessor, Hubble Space Telescope (or the Hubble Space Telescope), orbits Earth at 340 miles and moves in and out from the planet’s shadow approximately every 90 minutes.

Webb was named after NASA’s Chief during the early decade of 1960s. He is approximately 100 times as sensitive to Hubble. Webb will profoundly change scientists’ knowledge of the universe, and their place within it.

Webb will primarily view the cosmos using the infrared spectrum. This allows it to see through clouds of dust and gas where stars are being formed. Hubble, on the other hand, has been limited to optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

COSMOLOGICAL HISTORY LESSON

Additionally, the primary mirror of this telescope, which is made up of 18 sections of hexagonal beryllium metallic coated with gold, has a greater light collection area. This allows it to see more objects from farther away than Hubble and other telescopes.

Astronomers believe that this will allow us to see a new view of the cosmos – it is only 100 million years since the Big Bang. This theoretical flashpoint set off the expansion of our universe 13.8 billion years earlier.

Hubble’s vision extends back approximately 400 million years after the Big Bang. This is a time just before the first galaxies, which are multi-layered clusters of stars and gases, began to take shape.

Apart from better understanding the formation of stars and galaxies, astronomers also want to investigate super-massive dark holes that are believed to be located in distant galaxies.

Webb’s tools also allow you to look for signs of potential life-supporting atmospherics around scores exoplanets (celestial bodies orbiting distant stars) and observe other worlds such as Mars or Saturn’s icy Moon Titan.

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency lead an international collaboration to create this telescope. Northrop-Grumman Corp (NYSE.:) was the principal contractor. European contributions include the launch vehicle for Arianespace.

Webb was developed at a cost of $8.8 billion, with operational expenses projected to bring its total price tag https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nasa-telescope/northrop-ceo-grilled-by-u-s-lawmakers-over-space-telescope-idUSKBN1KG2US to about $9.66 billion, far higher than planned when NASA was previously aiming for a 2011 launch.

The telescope’s astronomical operation will be performed from Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute. This follows six months of aligning and calibrating Webb’s instruments and mirrors. It is expected to be operational for up to ten years.