Telescope even stronger than Hubble in space

Astronomy fans got a Christmas present from NASA.

The James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful yet, was launched into space Saturday after years of delays.

The probe lifted off around 7:20 a.m. EST from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch had been pushed back by weather, the pandemic and other problems.

“Merry Christmas! We got you a new telescope,” NASA tweeted. “The James Webb Space Telescope launched today, beginning a onemillion-mile journey to see 13.5 billion years into the past.”

It’ll take 29 days for the telescope to travel those million miles into an orbit around the sun — and it’ll be another five months before it starts scanning the cosmos.

If all goes well, the telescope will spend the following five to 10 years studying the creation of the universe and our solar system from the earliest galaxies after the Big Bang to today’s.

“A new era of astronomy,” NASA called it Saturday.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the telescope is a time machine that will provide “a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search that’s eternal.”

The $10 billion James Webb telescope, named after NASA chief in the 1960s who helped launch the Apollo program, will be able to see objects in space, such as stars, nebulae and planets, that cannot be seen in visible light or with the human eye.

The telescope, which went into development in 1996, was beset by changes and setbacks.

Its predecessor, the Hubble Telescope, sees visible light, ultraviolet radiation and near-infrared radiation. The Hubble was launched in 1990.

“We are expecting to see the light from the first galaxies that formed some 100 [million], 200 million years after the Big Bang,” Nelson said before the launch.

“It will deliver world-class science. It’s a revolutionary technology that will study every phase of 13 billion years of cosmic history.”

The launch caused excitement for those seeking answers, including a man who played a fictional spaceman.

“Congratulations to all who lifted the James Webb telescope to the heavens this morning,” tweeted “Star Trek” actor George Takei. “An astonishing engineering feat, worthy of the history books! Long may it reveal the universe’s secrets to us back here on Earth.”