The agency announced Saturday that it had achieved a major breakthrough after the telescope unfolded in space.
The final stage of the telescope's 50 major deployment was marked by the risky maneuver NASA has never pulled off before. The machine was remotely opened by NASA teams.
The instrument was blasted into the sky on Christmas Day. The first 400 million years after the Big bang, there was a gap in the historical record of our universe, and Astronomers expect to fill it with information about distant worlds that could host life.
NASA achieved another engineering milestone decades in the making today, according to a press release by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The journey is not complete, but I join the team in imagining the future breakthrough that will inspire the world.
He said that the James Webb Space Telescope was on the verge of seeing the light from the first galaxies and discovering the mysteries of our universe.
The European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency collaborated to create and develop the telescope, which is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope.
It was a difficult proposition to unfurl. A hexagonal mirror made of 18 gold-coated segments and a sun shield the size of a tennis court are two major components of the telescope. NASA folded them up like a table because they were too large to fit in a rocket.
Four months is how long the telescope will spend aligning and focusing its mirrors. The observatory's science instruments will be adjusted to observe the universe in different wavelength of light.