ESA spots James Webb Space Telescope into space; releases images

After it lifted off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on Saturday, James Webb Space Telescope has begun its journey to ‘unfold the universe'. Now as Webb is forging ahead in its path, the European Space Agency (ESA) has spotted the telescope and the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket, Webb’s launch vehicle.

 

 

In the image, the James Webb Space Telescope is somewhere on the top portion of the image where it can be spotted as a speck. On the other hand, Ariane 5’s upper stage is all the way below in the picture, long after it ejected the telescope, letting the latter head toward its destination into deep space, all alone.

 

According to ESA, the picture was taken by astronomers at the Tautenburg Schmidt telescope in Germany at 4:53 am (IST) on December 26, a day after Webb’s historic launch.

 

 

 

The telescope is cruising through space towards L2 at an approximate speed of 33,796 kmph and according to NASA’s recent update, scientists have successfully deployed the gimbaled antenna assembly for data transmission.

 

Following the deployment, at least 28.6 Gbytes of science data will be sent down from the observatory twice a day towards Earth. In addition to this, temperature sensors and strain gauges of the telescope have also been activated and this will allow the scientists to get access to Webb's temperature and strain data.

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