On December 25, 2021, a new and exciting age of space science started when the James Webb Space Telescope was launched* into space. According to NASA, Webb is the largest and most powerful space science telescope ever built.

At first, Webb was planned to cost half a billion dollars and launched in 2007. But it turned out to be impossible. As designed, Webb’s orbit* is about 1.6 million kilometers away from the earth. It is too far for the astronauts to repair if it breaks down. So everything has to work perfectly on the first try, and it is the main reason why NASA spent nearly 30 years and 10 billion dollars getting it ready for launch.

Considered as a successor* to the old Hubble Space Telescope, Webb will allow us to look deeper into the universe than ever before. Hubble mostly sees what we see—which is known as visible light. But Webb is designed to focus on the infrared* light, which is invisible to the human eyes. That means Webb can see through dust* in the universe and make new discoveries by examining stars inside those dust clouds. It will try to collect light from the very first stars when the universe was young. By collecting the light, the telescope can see galaxies as they appeared in the past, which could help to explain how the universe began. It will also study the planets around other stars, looking for signs of life.

In order to collect the light and focus it into its camera, the mirror* Webb uses is 6.5 meters across much larger than Hubble’s 2.4-meter-wide mirror. The size advantage gives Webb 6.25 times more surface area to collect light in the universe, letting it see further and more detailed. However, the mirror also needs to be small enough to fit into a rocket to be launched into space. To fit the telescope in the rocket, engineers built the mirror with 18 honeycomb-shaped segments* that could fold up. And during Webb’s journey to the orbit, they will unfold, creating one large mirror.

Now, Webb has been in its orbit for several months, and it will send back its first images in June. By the time, the results will prove it is of great value to put so much time and money in building it.

In the universe (宇宙), as we know, there is the sun, the moon, the earth and many stars. Through our geography lessons, we know the earth goes round the sun, and the moon goes round the earth. We have day and night because the earth keeps turning all the time. When our part of the earth turns to the sun, it is day. When our part of the earth turns away from the sun, it is night.

Just because the moon is closer to the earth than the sun, it looks much bigger than the sun. Big things will look smaller when they are farther, and small things also look bigger when they are nearer,

The sun is bright enough to give out very strong light. The moon can’t give out any light at all, but it looks quite bright too. Why? In fact, the light from the moon comes from the sun. The moon looks much bigger and brighter than the stars. But actually (事实上) the stars are much bigger and brighter than the moon. They look smaller than the moon also because they are farther away from the earth.

There are still many other planets (行星) in the universe. All of them move round the sun. But of all these planets, only on the earth there are living things and people can only live on the earth too. At 9:00 a.m., on October 15th 2003, Chinese pilot (飞行员) Yang Liwei was sent up to space. He stayed there for 21 hours. It was the first time for Chinese to get into space.

Imagine you are taking a bus home at night. Suddenly your cellphone loses its signal. The television on the bus has no programs. Everything around us black-except for some strange colorful lights dancing in the sky. What is going on?

These are just the kinds of problems a solar storm might cause. Solar storms happen when solar flares (耀斑)break from the sun and travel towards Earth quickly. Actually, since Sept.4, 2017, the sun has burst out two big solar flares, the most powerful ones since at least 2008 according to NASA. They hit Earth on Sept.7.

Normally, Earth is protected by its magnetic field (磁场). But when strong solar storm mix with it, things change. On the one hand, the colourful lights of the aurora (极光)can be seen from the US and Europe, rather than just from polar (极地的)areas. But on the other hand, the storms can stop the satellite systems that control our computers, cell phones and GPS. They can even cause blackouts (断电) for weeks or months.

, but they can put astronauts in danger. Spacewalking astronauts might have only minutes to hide. For this reason, NASA never plans spacewalks during solar storms.

Scientists now have a new tool called EEGGL, which can predict solar storms and hopefully give us warnings when they arrive. As for the recent storm, scientists say it is still too early to know its effect on our technology. They are closely watching for any long-term effects.