Nasa's James Webb telescope reaches destination in solar orbit

New telescope is expected to send back images as early as this summer

Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope will give astronomers a peek into the early universe. All photos: Nasa

An artist's impression of the telescope in space. It will detect stars and galaxies 13.5 billion light years away, capturing light sources and studying formation of galaxies

It is hoped the telescope will show us what the universe was like 100 to 250 million years after its birth

The James Webb Space Telescope has 18 primary mirrors that are built together in the shape of a honeycomb

It is the world's most powerful telescope. Its mirrors are 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope

The $10 billion telescope is the size of school bus. It had to fold up to fit inside the launch rocket

A European rocket, Ariane 5, launched the $10 billion ‘time travel machine’ from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana

Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope, designed to give the world an unprecedented glimpse into the earliest stages of the universe, reached its gravitational parking space on Monday in orbit around the Sun, almost 1.6 million kilometres from Earth.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore fired its thrusters for five minutes in order to reach the so-called second Lagrange point, or L2, where it will have a wide view of the cosmos.

"Webb, welcome home!" said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement.

The mirrors on the $10 billion observatory still must be meticulously aligned and the infrared detectors sufficiently chilled before science observations can begin in June. But flight controllers in Baltimore were euphoric after chalking up another success.

“We’re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I can’t wait to see Webb’s first new views of the universe this summer!” Mr Nelson said.

From its vantage point in space, Webb will follow a path in constant alignment with Earth, as the planet and telescope circle the Sun in tandem, enabling uninterrupted radio contact.

By comparison, Webb's 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the Earth from 547km away, passing in and out of the planet's shadow every 90 minutes.

The combined pull of the Sun and Earth at L2 can hold the telescope firmly in place so it takes little additional rocket thrust to keep Webb from drifting.

Utilised by several other deep space satellites over the years, an L2 position allows a "minimum amount of fuel to stay in orbit", Eric Smith, Nasa's programme scientist for Webb said.

The operations centre has also begun fine-tuning the telescope's primary mirror — an array of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal measuring 6.5 metres across — far larger than Hubble's main mirror.

Its size and design to operate mainly in the infrared spectrum will allow Webb to peer through clouds of gas and dust and observe objects at greater distances, thus farther back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.

These features are expected to usher in a revolution in astronomy, giving the first view of infant galaxies dating to 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set the expansion of the known universe in motion an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.

Webb's instruments also make it ideal to search for signs of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented exoplanets — celestial bodies orbiting distant stars — and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn's icy moon Titan.

It will take several more months of work to prepare Webb for its astronomical debut.

The 18 segments of its principal mirror, which had been folded together to fit inside the cargo bay of the rocket that carried the telescope to space, were unfurled with the rest of its structural components during a two-week period following Webb's launch on December 25.

Those segments were recently detached from fasteners that held them in place for the launch and slowly moved forward half an inch from their original configuration, allowing them to be adjusted into a single, unbroken, light-collecting surface.

The 18 segments now need to be aligned to achieve the mirror's proper focus, a process that will take three months to complete.

As the alignment progresses, ground teams will start activating the observatory's spectrograph, camera and other instruments. This will be followed by two months of calibrating the instruments themselves, Smith said.

If all goes smoothly, Webb should be ready to begin making observations by early summer, with initial images used to demonstrate the instruments function properly.

But Mr Smith said Webb's most ambitious work, including plans to train its mirror on objects farthest from Earth, will take longer to conduct so it will be a while till the world gets a look at such images.

The telescope is an international collaboration led by Nasa in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies. Northrop Grumman Corp was the primary contractor.