James Webb Space Telescope: Five things you didn't know!

1. The James Webb Space Telescope, also called the JWST or Webb, will be the largest telescope ever sent into space. It is named after James Webb - NASA’s second administrator and champion of many NASA science missions. JWST was formerly known as the "Next Generation Space Telescope" (NGST) but it was renamed in September 2002 after the former NASA administrator, James Webb.

2. The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in October 2018. It will be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. With a sunshield 22 metres (72 feet) in length, the size of a tennis court, and a mirror 6.5 metres (21 feet) wide the JWST is over twice the size of the Hubble Space Telescope, making it the largest space telescope ever launched.

3. The JWST will take about a month to reach a position 1.5 million kilometres (930,000 miles) from Earth known as Lagrange point 2, or L2, where the telescope will operate below -390 F. However, if it malfunctions here, there will be no way to go about and fix it.

4. It will see the first galaxies born after the Big Bang over 13.5 billion years ago. Webb's infrared cameras are so sensitive they must block light from the Sun, Earth, and Moon. The 5-layer sunshield is almost like having sunblock of SPF 1 million!

5. It is the impressive result of efforts from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency and will peer to the edges of the visible universe. Scientists all over the world will be able to use Webb to further into space and back into time than ever before.