The big James Webb Telescope

Nice graphic size comparison of various space telescopes.

Courtesy +Tony Darnell

Credit: Tony Darnell

Mission Exploring the Universe from the solar neighbourhood to the most distant galaxies.

Name The James Webb Space Telescope honours NASA's second administrator, James E. Webb.

Partnership JWST is a joint project between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Description JWST is a major space observatory often presented as the successor to the very successful NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HST). It has a large 6.5-metre segmented mirror that will collect almost 6 times more light than HST. It has also been designed to work with infrared light. It will address a broad variety of scientific topics ranging from detecting the first galaxies in the Universe to studying planets around other stars.

Credit: NASA

JWST mission facts

Scientists expect JWST:

• to find out more about the origins of the Universe by observing infrared light from the first stars and galaxies;
• to study the properties of planets around other stars, including looking for the signature of water in their atmosphere;

Read more:

James Webb Telescope - A bigger and better time machine (ESA)

Multi-user Schedule Environment 

James Webb Factsheet (ESA)