The James Webb Space Telescope

Cool animation of the James Webb Space Telescope deploying.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble and will be NASA's prime space observatory when it is launched in 2013.

JWST will deploy a tennis court-sized sunshield that will maintain the telescope's temperature at approximately -370°F, allowing its powerful infrared sensors to see the most distant galaxies and earliest stars. Watch an animation of the space observatory as it unfurls the largest deployable telescope ever launched.