20 | EXPLORE WINTER 2023 What can we discover in the far reaches of the Universe? How do galaxies form? Are we alone? These longstanding questions may finally find answers. Last summer, astronomy captured mainstream headlines when Earth received the first set of images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on July 12. An ambitious feat of science and a metaphorical time machine, this telescope will allow astronomers to peer back 13.5 billion years to the origins of the Universe. “It’s amazing to think that we’ll be viewing the Universe when it was just a few percent of its current age—a time when the very first galaxies were starting to take shape,” says Nick Anderson, Senior Astronomer & Manager of Astronomy at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The James Webb Space Telescope, also known as JWST or Webb, is an orbiting infrared observatory with goals to complement and expand on the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. Launched on December 25, 2021, aboard the Ariane 5 ECA rocket, Webb spent one month traveling to its final orbit destination—the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, located approximately 1 million miles from Earth. Anderson emphasizes that this point is considerably farther than Hubble’s low-Earth orbit, which sits approximately 375 miles from Earth. The Webb team has analyzed its trajectory and determined the observatory should have enough propellant to support operations for 10 years of research and discovery. Unfolding the Universe NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Revolutionizes Astronomy Photo credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI James Webb Space Telescope's First Deep Field
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