“We’re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries
of the universe. And I can’t wait to see Webb’s irst
new views of the universe this summer!” NASA
Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.
The telescope will enable astronomers to peer
back further in time than ever before, all the way
back to when the irst stars and galaxies were
forming 13.7 billion years ago. That’s a mere
100 million years from the Big Bang, when the
universe was created.
Besides making stellar observations, Webb will
scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible
signs of life.
“Webb is oicially on station,” said Keith Parrish, a
manager on the project. “This is just capping of
just a remarkable 30 days.”
The telescope was launched from French Guiana
on Christmas. A week and a half later, a sunshield
as big as a tennis court stretched open on the
telescope. The instrument’s gold-coated primary
mirror — 21 feet (6.5 meters) across — unfolded a
few days later.
The primary mirror has 18 hexagonal segments,
each the size of a cofee table, that will have to be
painstakingly aligned so that they see as one — a
task that will take three months.
“We’re a month in and the baby hasn’t even
opened its eyes yet,” Jane Rigby, the operations
project scientist, said of the telescope’s infrared
instruments. “But that’s the science that we’re
looking forward to.”
Monday’s thruster iring put the telescope in orbit
around the sun at the so-called second Lagrange
point, where the gravitational forces of the sun
and Earth balance each other. The 7-ton spacecraft