See: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Launch; what’s next here

The event was broadcast live on a NASA-ESA joint webcast, with the countdown in French. “From the tropical rain forest to the edge of time, James Webb begins a journey to the birth of the universe,” said a NASA commentator, as a two-stage launch vehicle equipped with a double solid-rocket booster roared into its Launch pad in cloudy sky.

After a 27-minute hypersonic ride in space, the 14,000-pound instrument was released from the upper stage of a French-built rocket about 865 miles above Earth, and should be slowly propelled onto the next, roughly the size of a tennis court. 13 days when it proceeds on its own.

Live video captured by a camera mounted on the rocket’s upper stage showed Webb gliding slowly, receiving cheers and applause from jubilant flight engineers at the Mission Control Center.

Flight controllers later confirmed, as Webb’s solar-powered array was deployed, that its power supply was working.

Watch the video:

Here’s everything you need to know:

The Webb telescope will reach its destination in solar orbit 1 million miles from Earth – about four times as far from the Moon. And Webb’s special orbital path will keep it in constant alignment with Earth as the planet and telescope orbit the Sun together.

Meanwhile, Webb’s 30-year predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits Earth from 340 miles away, passing in and out of the planet’s shadow every 90 minutes.

The telescope is named after the man who observed NASA during most of its early 1960s-era James Webb.

The telescope is about 100 times more sensitive than Hubble and is expected to change scientists’ understanding of the universe and our place in it.

Webb will primarily observe the universe in the infrared spectrum, allowing it to see through clouds of gas and dust where stars are born, while Hubble operates primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

That, astronomers say, will bring into view a glimpse of the universe that has never been seen before — just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set in motion the expansion of the observable universe, an estimated 13.8 billion years ago. Was.