It is truly a special birthday for the many scientists who are eagerly awaiting this moment. The largest space telescope ever, James Webb, was launched into space thanks to an Ariane 5 rocket on Saturday, December 25. Held from the city of Kourou in French Guiana, the event is the fruit of nearly thirty years of international cooperation. In the control room, there is an extraordinary fact, that the Europeans do business with the Americans. All of them are relieved when the space telescope is launched into orbit. “There was a wait, it was very touching,” Explains Pierre Ferrouette, of the European Space Agency (ESA).

James Webb’s final orbit will be 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, four times the farthest from the Moon. Thanks to its infrared technology, it will be able to track the first galaxies, black holes or signs of life around exoplanets. “We basically want to observe the most distant galaxies in the universe, the ones that formed after the Big Bang.”, says Mark McCogren, Scientific Adviser at the European Space Agency. James Webb’s publication will last about thirty days, during which scientists He will still bite his fingers a lotSays the head of the science department at the European Space Agency (ESA). The telescope should send out its first images within six months.