WHY THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE LAUNCH IS A BIG DEAL

The James Webb Space Telescope (JSWT) is a space telescope developed by US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and contributions from the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope – NASA’s largest and most powerful space science telescope – will probe the cosmos to uncover the history of the universe from the Big Bang to alien planet formation and beyond.

This powerful telescope is an infrared space observatory that launched on Dec 25, 2021.

It will have four major assignments –

(i) see into the past
(ii) probe how galaxies formed in the past
(iii) probe into the birth of stars and protoplanetary systems
(iv) birth of planets, including origins of life.