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Exploring the universe with the Webb Telescope

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Hands-on at the exhibit

  • Pop into a photobooth for an infra-red selfie that you can share
  • Hunt for infra-red sources hidden around the exhibit, using a mobile camera
  • Explore the spacecraft and British-led instrument, with our interactive model

Find out more

Astronomers around the world are eagerly awaiting the launch of a huge new space telescope.

In 2021 the Webb Telescope will be blasted 1.5 million kilometres into space, beyond Earth’s orbit, to become the largest and most advanced observatory ever launched. At this exhibit you can get to grips with its cutting-edge hardware and see how the Webb Telescope will provide a giant leap in our understanding of the universe.

The Webb Telescope is more advanced and more than twice the size of the iconic Hubble telescope. It will allow astronomers to observe objects from our own solar system, to some of the most distant in the Universe that formed shortly after the big bang.  By detecting infra-red wavelengths, the Webb Telescope will help us understand how planets, stars, and galaxies form and evolve, and may even provide the first evidence for habitable planets outside the solar system. 

The Webb Telescope is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, who are partnering to take space observation to new frontiers.

Find out more about the Webb Telescope from the European Space AgencyNASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Presented by: University of Sussex, The United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre, University of Edinburgh, University College London, European Space Agency, University of Leicester, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Durham University and Queen's University Belfast.

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