The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest space telescope ever launched, an infrared observatory orbiting far beyond the Moon on the Earth’s night side.
About The James Webb Space Telescope
Webb is a collaboration of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Its gold-coated mirror is made of hexagonal segments that unfolded in space, and a sunshield the size of a tennis court keeps it in permanent shade, cold enough to see faint infrared light.
Infrared light passes through dust that hides newborn stars, and it carries the stretched light of the earliest galaxies. Webb uses both to study the first galaxies, the birth of stars and planets, and the atmospheres of planets around other stars.
It orbits the Sun–Earth L2 point, a spot on the far side of the Earth from the Sun where it can keep the Sun, Earth and Moon behind its shield.
What you see in the piece
The piece places it at L2, on the far side of the Earth from the Sun. Far from the Earth and Moon, it shows only as a label.
Questions
Where is the James Webb Space Telescope?
In orbit around the Sun–Earth L2 point, beyond the Moon on the side away from the Sun.
Why does Webb observe in infrared?
Infrared light passes through dust that hides forming stars, and light from the most distant galaxies has been stretched into the infrared by the expansion of the Universe.