NASA's revolutionary new space telescope launched

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.