will loop-de-loop around that point while
also circling the sun. It will always face
Earth’s night side to keep its infrared
detectors as frigid as possible.
At 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers)
away, Webb is more than four times as distant
as the moon.
The Webb is expected to operate for well over a
decade, maybe two.
Considered the successor to the Hubble Space
Telescope, which orbits 330 miles (530 kilometers)
up, Webb is too far away for emergency repairs.
That makes the milestones over the past month
— and the ones ahead — all the more critical.
Spacewalking astronauts performed surgery
ive times on Hubble. The irst operation,
in 1993, corrected the telescope’s blurry
vision, a law introduced during the mirror’s
construction on the ground.
Whether chasing optical and ultralight light like
Hubble or infrared light like Webb, telescopes
can see farther and more clearly when
operating above Earth’s distorting atmosphere.
That’s why NASA teamed up with the European
and Canadian space agencies to get Webb and
its mirror — the largest ever launched — into
the cosmos.