On Wednesday NASA administrator Bill Nelson said that the agency will reveal the "deepest image of our universe that has ever been taken" on July 12.
"If you think about that, this is often farther than humanity has ever moved before," Nelson said. "And we're only starting to understand what Webb can and will do. It's going to explore objects with in the solar system and atmospheres of exoplanets orbiting other stars, giving us clues on whether potentially their atmospheres are just like to our own."
It may answer some questions that we have: Where do we come from? What more is out there? Who are we? And after all, it’s going to answer some questions that we don’t even know what the questions are.”
The operations center for the $10 billion observatory that was launched in December last year and is now orbiting the sun a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth.
Webb’s infrared capabilities allow it to determine deeper back in time to the Big Bang, which happened 13.8 billion years ago.
In more excellent news, NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy revealed that, because of an efficient launch by NASA’s partner Arianespace, the telescope could stay operational for 20 years, double the lifespan that was originally envisaged.