James Webb space telescope launches 1220 today (hopefully)

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Biggest event of Christmas for my astronomy-loving husband! Apparently weather conditions aren't great in French Guiana, but NASA and the ESA are expecting the launch to go ahead. This massive telescope will observe mainly in the infrared. Hubble nearing the end of its life so this will to some extent be a replacement. It will orbit the Sun 1.5 million km from Earth with a massive heat shield for protection. Incredible technical achievement. Launch will be on NASA TV.

We’ll be watching. It’s exciting.

We will too! Always eat Christmas Dinner mid-afternoon anyway, but today all timings are around this.

What time is it launching?

It's rather exciting! thanks for the reminder.

Thank you I did not know this but will be watching with DS in an space suit.

@CovidCorvid

What time is it launching?

Ha ha, sorry….realised it’s literally in the post title!

Been decades in the making and whole careers hanging on this….there’ll be lots of fingers and toes crossed and lots and lots of chewed finger nails…

@Felldownabackdonhole

Thank you I did not know this but will be watching with DS in an space suit.

It’s funny, I was never particularly interested in space until I had a child who likes it. Now I’m probably more excited than him

We are really excited for this here - such an amazing project!

Will be watching, DS has the playmobil rocket and it looks very like this sat on its launchpad, so he's excited!

Ooh, this is exciting! What will we be expecting to see? And over what time frame?

Less than half an hour to launch!

Watch it live and .
Crikey, I hope it goes well!

Several weeks before it unfolds and all parts get to the right temperature, apparently.

Thank you, OP - DP is very happy now I've put the livestream on.

I might even take over cooking so he can watch the launch itself...

Very tense now. One minute to go!

I'm watching - forget Christmas Carols, this is more exciting!

We're all excited in our house too.

Watched this video this morning and loved the easy to understand explanation of how it will work

Incredible stuff. Way, way beyond my technical and scientific understanding! I am in awe.

Shame we couldn't strap 'covid' to it as it launched

I missed it as usual but I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere!

It made my Christmas. A big phew. Now to wait to see if it'll work as intended, I suppose...

We watched the launch together as a family. I was very relieved it went well.

DS did a year-long research project with the UKATC analysing data from the Spitzer telescope to identify potential targets for the JWST, so feels invested, even if very peripherally.