What is JWST?
JWST is the James Webb Space Telescope, a facility-class space observatory operating in the visible, near and mid infrared. JWST’s 6.6-meter diameter primary mirror has a 25-square-meter collecting area formed from eighteen hexagonal segments, and will be diffraction limited at 2 microns. It is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA.) The telescope will be an infrared-optimized general-observer facility with four science instruments: a near-IR camera (0.6-5 microns) from the University of Arizona; a near-IR spectrograph (1-5 microns) from ESA; a tunable-filter imager (1.6-4.9 microns) from CSA; and a mid-IR camera/spectrograph (5-28.5 microns) provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, ESA and a nationally funded consortium of European institutes. In addition, CSA is providing the Fine Guidance Sensor. JWST is projected to launch in 2014 on an Ariane 5 ECA rocket to an orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point. • How can I get
