“The James Webb telescope will reveal to us the first stars which lit up at the beginning of the history of the universe”, specifies Thierry Fouchet

The launch of the James Webb telescope is one of NASA’s most ambitious. Will the machine tell us where we come from? “It will reveal to us the first stars that lit up at the beginning of the history of the universe and reveal to us, over time, how these stars were able to generate the matter that formed us. And how the galaxies have evolved from various forms to the two large families of galaxies that we know today “, explains Thierry Fouchet, doctor in astronomy and astrophysics at Sorbonne University (Paris), guest of the 23h of franceinfo, Friday, December 24.

How does the telescope work? “Its great peculiarity is to be cooled. This is why it goes to the Lagrange 2 point. Thanks to this cooling, it can be very sensitive in order to look at all the objects which are very weakly luminous in the universe. “, specifies the doctor in astronomy and astrophysics. When will the telescope be able to send images? “The real scientific operations will begin after six months. But, as soon as NASA is going to do the tests, we will necessarily take images of very well-known objects.“, concludes Thierry Fouchet.