It's a moment that has been decades in the making. The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's premier space observatory of the next decade, successfully launched on Christmas morning.
The telescope lifted off atop an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana at 7:20 a.m. ET.
"We have LIFTOFF of the @NASAWebb Space Telescope!" NASA shared on Twitter. "At 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC), the beginning of a new, exciting decade of science climbed to the sky. Webb's mission to #UnfoldTheUniverse will change our understanding of space as we know it."
