NASA's revolutionary new space telescope launched
The Hindu
Coasting through space for two more weeks, the Webb telescope will reach its destination in solar orbit 1 millionmiles from Earth.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary instrument built to peer the farthest yet into the cosmos, was launched by rocket early Saturday from South America's northeastern coast, opening a much anticipated new era of astronomical exploration.
The powerful $9 billion infrared telescope, hailed by NASA as the premiere space-science observatory of the next decade, was carried aloft inside the cargo bay of an Ariane 5 rocket that blasted off at about 7:30 a.m. EST (1230 GMT) from the European Space Agency's (ESA) launch base in French Guiana.
The launch was carried live on a joint NASA-ESA webcast.
As speculation over the continuation of Minister for Scheduled Tribes Welfare B. Nagendra in the Cabinet persisted, with the demand for his resignation raised by the BJP in connection with the ₹94 crore scam at the Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation, his Cabinet colleagues came to his defence on Thursday.