By Daniel Vega
JWST is widely regarded as one of the greatest milestones yet in terms of space exploration. JWST was launched on December 25, 2021 and was in orbit around the Earth for 6 months while it got ready to examine the stars. The first images from JWST were released on July 12, 2022 and have already changed the way that scientists understand space and the creation of the universe, however, with all this talk about how monumental and historic JWST is it begs the question, what exactly is JWST?
JWST stands for the James Webb Space Telescope and was named after James Webb the administrator of NASA during the Apollo space mission. Webb served as NASA administrator from 1961-1968 and played a key role in landing the first humans on the moon, as he authorized and oversaw Project Apollo. JWST was under planning for over 30 years and has an operational cost of about 9.4 billion dollars. Despite this, JWST is the most powerful space telescope currently in use, to put into perspective just how powerful JWST is, it is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST’s predecessor. JWST is also not a normal telescope, it features state-of-the-art infrared lenses that allow it to see past thick clouds of dust and gas in space.
All of the hype about JWST was definitely not for nothing, with the help of this new state-of-the-art piece of technology humans will finally be able to understand space on a level nobody has understood it before. Astrologists believe JWST will help map the universe, look for other planets that could potentially harbor life, and provide clues as to the formation of the universe by looking deep into the galaxy at the creation of stars and solar systems in stellar nurseries such as the Orion Nebula. All pictures taken by JWST are released by NASA and can be found using this link
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