After a delay of several years, the James Webb space telescope was launched on 25 December, and ESA has published a video of the spectacular launch.
It's almost hard to count the number of times the James Webb launch, but this Christmas, it was a miracle that the device, the world's most advanced and most expensive space telescope, was launched at a cost of $10.7 billion, or around 3,400 billion forints.
The launch could be watched live, but at certain points the video was so choppy that it was almost impossible to see what was happening. Because, among other things, the spectacular sequence of the telescope detaching from the Ariane 5 launcher and then switching on its solar panels thirty minutes after launch was not visible, the European Space Agency (ESA) recently released a high-quality image of what happened in space.
🎥 Great footage from @RealtraSpace camera of NASA/ESA/CSA James #Webb Space Telescope as it separates from its @Arianespace @ariane5 upper stage and unfolds its solar panel, 25 December 2021 👉 https://t.co/pncsLEDASF#WebbFliesAriane #VA256 #JWST @ESA_Webb @NASAWebb @csa_asc pic.twitter.com/zpjG3ikx7l
- ESA (@esa) December 30, 2021
The space telescope is now more than 900 000 km away from our planet and will travel to a region called the L2 Lagrange point, 1.5 million km from Earth, in the coming weeks. The latest news from the spacecraft came yesterday, when it successfully deployed its tennis-court-sized heat shield in a highly complex and important operation.
Intended as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb will gather information about the earliest era of the universe, exploring the cosmos, planets and moons within the Solar System, and the oldest and most distant galaxies, in the infrared region, largely absorbed by our planet's atmosphere.