This massive space telescope will revolutionize astronomy

Meet the James Webb Space Telescope

A 2015 rendering of the James Webb Space Telescope.
(Image credit: NASA/Northrop Grumman)

NASA's massive James Webb Space Telescope will do nothing less than usher in a revolutionary era of astronomy.

The giant telescope is still being built, but it's nearing completion. The latest milestone was the finishing of the telescope's mirror, which has been under construction at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. It resembles a giant honeycomb — 18 golden-hued hexagons that fit together to form a surface measuring more than 21 feet end to end. And it will enable scientists to look more deeply and clearly into space than ever before. The ultimate goal: to see "first light," the stars and galaxies whose births more than 13 billion years ago ended the dark ages of the universe.

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Alexis Boncy is special projects editor for The Week and TheWeek.com. Previously she was the managing editor for the alumni magazine Columbia College Today. She has an M.F.A. from Columbia University's School of the Arts and a B.A. from the University of Virginia.