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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope designed primarily to conduct infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in space, its greatly improved infrared resolution and sensitivity allows it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. This is expected to enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars and the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.
The JWST was launched on December 25, 2021 and after a 6 month long process involving about 50 separate deployments involving 344 "single point failures" (i.e. individual steps that have to work for the mission to be a success), the telescope was put successfully put into use by the summer of 2022, with its historic first images released on July 12, 2022.