James Webb Space Telescope to launch Christmas Day due to high winds in forecast

The new launch window on Saturday for the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, begins at 7:20 a.m., taking place from Europe's Spaceport on the northeastern coast of South America.

News 12 Staff

Dec 23, 2021, 9:44 PM

Updated 1,021 days ago

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High winds in the forecast have pushed back the launch to Christmas Day for the world's largest and most dynamic space science telescope.
The new launch window on Saturday for the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, begins at 7:20 a.m., taking place from Europe's Spaceport on the northeastern coast of South America.
So, what can we look forward to after it gets into space?
Bill Ochs, Rockland County native and NASA project manager for the telescope, says it will be 100 times more powerful and more sensitive than the Hubble Telescope that's currently in space - basically taking the same photo as the Hubble but breaking it down even further into its X-ray version.
"When you see the pictures of Hubble with those pretty little gases and all those different colors, you can't see what's behind there. When you have an infrared telescope, you can see what's back there, and it's pretty amazing," says Ochs.
After the launch - if everything goes as planned - we could see some of the first images coming out from the telescope by May or June next year.