“If you can name it, Webb is likely to observe it”

It’s been one of astronomy’s most anticipated projects, perhaps even generating more excitement than the Mars Perseverance rover: the James Webb Space Telescope has been billed as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. If everything goes according to plan, when it’s been launched and placed in its Lagrange point orbit around a million miles from Earth, the veil will be lifted from the unexplored farthest reaches of the universe. In this issue of How It Works, discover the ingenious construction of the world’s most powerful telescope, how it will use infrared light to take unprecedented images of the edge of space and what we can expect the telescope to reveal.

Enjoy! Ben Biggs