By Leah Crane.
The Ariane 5 rocket is on the launchpad in French Guiana.
Ppiron/ESA/CNES/Arianespa ce.
The James Webb Space Telescope is now up and running. The biggest space telescope ever is on its way to begin unraveling some of the toughest mysteries of the universe after a long string of delays and budget overruns.
After the Ariane 5 rocket carrying the spacecraft lifted off from French Guiana at 1220GMT, it will travel to a location called a Lagrange point, which is about 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth. The instruments on the JWST need to stay cold in order to capture clear images.
During its first week in space, the telescope will slowly unfurl after being folded inside the rocket. The telescope will have a mirror made of 18 gold-plated beryllium hexagons and five layers of a special film called Kapton which will block the sun, Earth and moon from the telescope.
