James Webb Space Telescope — the largest space telescope in the world, will soon be embracing the skies to observe the uncharted territories of the cosmos and hunt for habitable exoplanets. But before it can do all of that, a new video shared by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows its unboxing from its shipping container.
Recently, the telescope was packed up in California and shipped through the Panama Canal. But it isn’t a simple task to pack up a delicate telescope that is so huge, so it had to be carefully folded away into a specially built case.
Telescope unpacked in the cleanroom
“After its arrival at Pariacabo harbor in French Guiana on 12 October 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope was transported to Europe’s Spaceport and unboxed in the cleanroom. It is now being prepared for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket in December,” the European Space Agency (ESA) writes.
“Though the telescope weighs only six tonnes, it is more than 10.5 meters high and almost 4.5 meters wide when folded. It was shipped in its folded position in a 30 m long container which, with auxiliary equipment, weighed more than 70 tonnes.”
After safely arriving at its destination, the telescope had to be unpacked in the cleanroom at Europe’s Spaceport. A cleanroom has a carefully controlled environment that keeps out dust, preventing contamination of any part of the telescope.
James Webb to travel back in time
To enter this facility, engineers have to undergo several lobbies to remove any loose particles for their shoes, hair, and skin. All this is done to make sure no dust particles are left on the telescope.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said James Webb telescope will look backward in time and observe galaxies as they were 13 billion years ago viewing light created just after the Big Bang. It is basically a time machine that will be able to look at the light that has spent billions of years traveling from its source to be viewable by astronauts on Earth. It will also be hunting for life on other planets and galaxies.
