December 24 (Reuters) – NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, designed to provide a glimpse of the first moments of the universe, is due to launch on Saturday from the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.
This revolutionary infrared telescope costing nine billion dollars (7.9 billion euros) has been encapsulated in an Ariane 5 rocket 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 after 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 to a century ago. 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 exoplanets 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.
(Steve Gorman report; French version Camille Raynaud)