Watch: World’s most powerful telescope blasts off into space

In this still picture from a NASA TV broadcast, Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope onboard launches from Europe’s Spaceport, the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, on December 25, 2021.

Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope onboard stands on the launchpad.

The telescope is the most powerful space observatory ever built.

File picture: Engineers unpack, clean and prepare the James Webb Space Telescope.

James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope Mirror is seen during a media unveiling at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Maryland November 2, 2016.

Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket, with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope onboard.

Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket, with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope onboard, is seen in the final assembly building.

The James Webb Space Telescope is packed up for shipment to its launch site in Kourou, French Guiana in an undated photograph at Northrop Grumman's Space Park in Redondo Beach, California.