December 24 (Reuters) – NASA’s James Webb space telescope, designed to give a glimpse of the first moments of the universe, is due for launch on Saturday from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana.
This revolutionary infrared telescope at a cost of nine billion dollars (7.9 billion euros) was encapsulated in an Ariane 5 fuse which is due to take off at 12:20 GMT (13:20 French time) on Saturday.
If all goes as planned, the telescope will exit the rocket after a 26-minute trip into space. It will then take a month for it to reach its destination orbiting the Sun about a million kilometers from Earth, or about four times the Earth-Moon distance.
Named in honor of a former NASA administrator, the Webb telescope is approximately 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor Hubble and is expected to revolutionize astronomers’ understanding of the universe by observing parts of the cosmos dating back a million. years after the “Big Bang”.
It should also make it possible to search for atmospheres likely to shelter life around dozens of recently discovered exoplants and to observe more closely Mars and Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.
The Webb telescope is the result of an international collaboration led by NASA in partnership with European and Canadian space agencies. (Report Steve Gorman; French version Camille Raynaud)