Historic mission - the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched

The Ariane 5 (Ariane) rocket carrying the James Webb space telescope took off today from the space base in French Guiana.

The powered flight lasted 27 minutes, before detaching the telescope, which will be located 1,5 million kilometers from Earth.

The James Webb Telescope, a complex engineering gem, will be the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space.

It was built in the USA under the administration of NASA with the help of the European and Canadian space agencies.

The telescope will investigate with great precision the phases of the cosmos, from the first period of the universe, the big bang, to the creation of the first galaxies.

The James Webb telescope is the successor to the Hubble telescope.

"The Web is an extraordinary mission. It's a great example of what we can achieve when we dream big. We always knew this project would be a risky venture. But of course, when you want a big reward, you usually have to take a big risk," he said. is US space agency administrator Bill Nelson before liftoff.

Telespop has a golden mirror 6,5 meters wide at its core. That's almost three times wider than the primary reflector on Hubble.

The enlarged optics, combined with four super-sensitive instruments, should allow astronomers to look deeper into space - and thus further into the past - than ever before.

A key target will be the era of pioneer stars that ended the darkness thought to have engulfed the cosmos shortly after the Big Bang more than 13,5 billion years ago.

Another overarching goal for Webb will be to probe the atmospheres of distant planets. This will help researchers assess whether these worlds are in any way habitable.

"We're going to enter a whole new regime of astrophysics, a new frontier — and that's what excites many of us about the James Webb Space Telescope," said Heidi Hamel, a planetary astronomer and interdisciplinary scientist.

The telescope will be about 1,5 million km from Earth.

During the journey to this location, the Web will need to be unpacked from the folded configuration it was in at launch.

"This telescope will actually be at minus 233 degrees Celsius. Only then will it stop shining at infrared wavelengths beyond the visible where we want this telescope to operate. And only then will he be able to take sensitive pictures of the distant Universe where the first galaxies and planets orbiting other stars were born. So there is a long way to go," he said ESA Senior Science Adviser Mark McCorin.