James Webb Space Telescope
infrared space telescope at Sun-Earth L2
1.5 million km from Earth
Parked 1.5 million km from Earth, always in Earth's shadow side, behind a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Its 6.5 m gold mirror sees the first galaxies.
- sunshield 21 x 14 m keeps the telescope at -233 °C
- it has seen galaxies from 290 million years after the Big Bang
Numbers that change with time are from 8 November 2026.
open James Webb Space Telescope in the atlas ›- kind
- human-made craft
- at
- Earth
More human-made craft
- Starman and the Tesla Roadster a car in orbit round the Sun
- Hubble Space Telescope space telescope
- International Space Station crewed space station
- Crew Dragon capsule for crew and cargo
- Falcon Heavy rocket
- Falcon 9 rocket
- Starship rocket
- New Horizons space probe