An alien-hunting telescope, which will be able to look back over the past 13.5billion years, is nearing completion.
The James Webb space telescope (JWST) will launch in 2018 as a replacement to the Hubble space telescope, which is nearing retirement.
JWST will be installed with a Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) camera that will analyse the atmospheres of extrasolar planets – those outside our solar system – to look for gases such as oxygen or methane, which could indicate life.
It will be 100 times more powerful than the Hubble space telescope, which is partly because the area of its light-gathering mirror will be seven times larger, but also its four main instruments are a lot more sophisticated.
One of these is the Miri, which was mostly built in Britain.
ESA’s project manager for JWST Peter Jensen told The Sunday Times: “We will be seeking planets and solar systems like our own, looking for signatures of molecules such as water, CO2 and oxygen.
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