Nasa is all set to launch its most powerful space telescope on Christmas Day, following delays due to weather conditions.

 

The James Webb Space Telescope was originally scheduled to be launched on December 24 but it was delayed due to the adverse weather conditions at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Nasa announced the new launch date of December 25 in a tweet. The rocket carrying the telescope is all set to roll out the launchpad today.

The telescope is one of Nasa’s most awaited projects following decades of development and its launch which comes as a welcome Christmas treat for all the scientists, engineers, and technicians who were involved in the project.

Nasa including Arianespace, a French satellite launch company, completed the Launch Readiness Review for the James Webb Space Telescope on December 21. The crew approved the Ariane 5 rocket carrying Webb to rollout and the start of launch sequencing for the mission.

Nasa has quite high expectations for the James Webb space telescope to ‘study every phase in the history of our universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Bing Bang, to the creation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our solar system.’As a very anticipated part of the buildup to Saturday’s launch, Nasa has released a trailer pushing us to ‘prepare for a new way to see the universe.’

The Webb telescope is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope which has been beaming back astonishing images of space for the last three decades.

The telescope structures a huge gold-plated mirror with a diameter of almost 6.5 meters which will capture light from some of the faintest objects in the universe.

It also includes a pretty giant sun shield the size of the tennis court, along with the mirror, which has been folded to fit inside the rocket for launch. Once it is deployed both the sun shield and mirror will be fully open and it allows the Webb telescope to begin its work.
This week, Sarah Kendrew, a scientist who has been working on the project for the last 15 years and is now at the launch site in French Guiana, described Webb as ‘the most technically challenging instrument that we’ve built in astronomy’ in an interview with BBC Radio.
‘Everyone is very excited…There are some prelaunch nerves,’ she added.

The Webb telescope will explore our complete solar system and the most distant visible galaxies in the universe, giving us a better understanding of the origins of the universe and our place in it.