The Hubble Space Telescope has far exceed Nasa's original expectations, but developments are well underway on its successor.
The James Webb Space Telescope is due to launch in March 2021 and, so far, the project has cost an astronomical $9.66 billion to develop.
When it finally does achieve orbit, it will be able to capture the far reaches of space in unprecedented detail. Until then, it's still being built in a cavernous warehouse in Los Angeles by Nasa and defence company Northrup Grumman.
The space agency tweeted a picture of the satellite this week to illustrate just how massive it is.
A man on a cherry-picker still only reaches about half-way up it.
(Human for scale.)
This photo showcases just how big #NASAWebb is! We'll be sharing more behind-the-scenes images captured during the integration of the spacecraft and telescope halves of the observatory in this thread.
Picture Credit: @northropgrumman pic.twitter.com/9S6C7EViVG
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) November 7, 2019
'A telescope's sensitivity, or how much detail it can see, is directly related to the size of the mirror area that collects light from the objects being observed,' explained Nasa.
'A larger area collects more light, just like a larger bucket collects more water in a rain shower than a small one.'
For those hard to reach places, technicians and engineers use various styles of lifts and platforms to ensure they have the best angle of approach to work on the observatory. pic.twitter.com/IVIfTMSi01
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) November 7, 2019
The James Webb's Space Telescope's mirrors have a 6.5 meter diameter – a big step up from the 2.4 meter diameter on Hubble.
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