James Webb Space Telescope reaches its final destination

The world’s largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever- James Webb Space Telescope- has reached the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point or L2. The Webb safely arrived at L2 on January 24, 2022, at 2 p.m. EST.

L2 is almost 1 million miles away from the Earth. It is an ideal location for an infrared observatory. At Sun-Earth L2, the Sun and Earth (and Moon, too) are always on one side of space. This will allow Webb to keep its telescope optics and instruments perpetually shaded.

And because L2 is a location of gravitational equilibrium, it is easy for Webb to maintain an orbit there.

NASA stated in the blog, “The final mid-course burn added only about 3.6 miles per hour (1.6 meters per second) – a mere walking pace – to Webb’s speed, which was all that was needed to send it to its preferred “halo” orbit around the L2 point.”