Nasa unveils Hubble's successor







The model of the JWST is on display in Washington DC.The US space agency Nasa
has unveiled a model of a space telescope that scientists say will be able to
see to the farthest reaches of the Universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is intended to replace the ageing Hubble
telescope.
It will be larger than its predecessor, sit farther from Earth and have a giant
mirror to enable it to see more.
Officials said the JWST - named after a former Nasa administrator - was on
course for launch in June 2013.
The full-scale model is being displayed outside the Smithsonian National Air and
Space Museum in the US capital, Washington DC.
It was recently shown off in Seattle at the American Astronomical Society
meeting.


The $4.5bn (£2.3bn) telescope will take up a position some 1.5 million km
(930,000 miles) from Earth.
It will measure 24m (80ft) long by 12m (40ft) high and incorporate a hexagonal
mirror 6.5m (21.3ft) in diameter, almost three times the size of Hubble's.
Hubble, launched in 1990, has sent back pictures of our solar system, distant
stars, and remote fledgling galaxies formed not long after the Big Bang.
But scientists say the JWST will enable them to look deeper into space and even
further back at the origins of the Universe.
"Clearly we need a much bigger telescope to go back much further in time to see
the very birth of the Universe," said Edward Weiler, director of Nasa's Goddard
Space Flight Centre.
Martin Mohan of Northrop Grumman, the contractor building the telescope, said
that the team was making excellent progress.
"There's engineering to do, but invention is done, more than six years ahead of
launch," he said.
When ready, the JWST will be launched by a European Ariane 5 rocket. It is
expected to have a 10-year lifespan.
Until then, the 17-year-old Hubble telescope will continue to do its work. Nasa
plans to send astronauts on the space shuttle to service it in 2008.





THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE


JWST is named after James E Webb, Nasa Administrator during the Apollo lunar
exploration era; he served from 1961 to 1968
It will be placed 1.5m km from Earth, at Lagrange Point 2, an area of
gravitational balance that keeps it in a Sun-Earth line
The telescope will be shaded from sunlight by a shield, enabling it to stay
cold, increasing its sensitivity to infrared radiation
Three principal instruments will gather images of the Universe in the infrared
region of the spectrum
These will yield new information about how stars and galaxies first formed a few
hundred million years after the Big Bang
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