(BBC): One of our planet's most stunning sights is coming to the skies - a super blood Moon.



In the year's only full lunar eclipse, Earth will come between the Sun and the Moon.



Falling fully into Earth's shadow, the Moon will slowly darken before turning dusky red.



It will be visible with the naked eye before dawn on Monday in most of Europe. The Americas will get a great view on Sunday evening.



The Moon will appear larger than usual because it will be at its closest point to Earth of its orbit, giving it the name super Moon.



It will also be called a super flower blood Moon. In the Northern Hemisphere, a full moon in May is often called a flower Moon because it coincides with the Spring flowers.



The only sunlight reaching the Moon during the full eclipse will be passing through the Earth's atmosphere.



This light will be blood red, from all Earth's sunrises and sunsets reflected onto the Moon's surface, explains Dr Gregory Brown, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London.



"You'll actually be seeing every sunrise and every sunset occurring around the Earth at once. All of that light will be projected on to the Moon," he told BBC News.



On Monday, western parts of Europe will get a good but short view as the Moon will set during the eclipse. Look low on the horizon between 0230 and 0430 BST and you'll see the moon falling into shadow before glowing red. It should be visible in Africa too.



In the UK watching from a high vantage point like a hill or tall building will be essential because of the Moon's very low position in the sky.



The UK will get a better view of the earlier part of the eclipse, Dr Brown explains.



As Earth's shadow starts to cover the Moon, it slowly takes a bite out of it. The Moon will be fully eclipsed and red at 0429 BST. It will then set, though the eclipse will continue until 0750 BST.



The Americas will be treated to the full spectacle, lasting 84 minutes. If you're in the western US and Canada, the time to watch the horizon is Sunday evening as the Moon rises.



You can see it with the naked eye while looking through binoculars or a small telescope will enhance the red color.



Of course, the very best vantage point for witnessing this eclipse is a place very few people have been lucky enough to visit - the Moon itself.



"If you were an astronaut standing on the Moon, looking back towards Earth, you'd see a red ring running around the outside of our planet," Dr Brown explains.

Full lunar eclipse to bring super blood Moon

(BBC): Insect numbers have plunged by half in some parts of the world due to climate change and intensive agriculture, a study has found.



The combined pressures of global heating and farming are driving a "substantial decline" of insects across the globe, according to UK researchers.



They say we must acknowledge the threats we pose to insects, before some species are lost forever.



But preserving habitat for nature could help ensure vital insects thrive.



Lead researcher, Dr Charlie Outhwaite of UCL, said losing insect populations could be harmful not only to the natural environment, but to "human health and food security, particularly with losses of pollinators".



"Our findings highlight the urgency of actions to preserve natural habitats, slow the expansion of high-intensity agriculture, and cut emissions to mitigate climate change," she added.



Plummeting populations of insects around the world - a so-called "insect apocalypse" - have caused widespread concern.



However, scientific data gives a mixed picture, with some types of insects showing drastic declines, while others are staying steady.



In the latest study, the researchers pulled together data on the range and number of nearly 20,000 insect species, including bees, ants, butterflies, grasshoppers and dragonflies, at about 6,000 different locations.



In areas with high-intensity agriculture and substantial warming, insect numbers have plunged by 49% and the number of different species by 27%, compared with relatively untouched places that have so far avoided the most severe impacts of climate change, according to the research, published in Nature.



But the researchers said there was some cause for hope in that setting aside areas of land for nature created a refuge for insects, which need shade to survive in hot weather.



"Careful management of agricultural areas, such as preserving natural habitats near farmland, may help to ensure that vital insects can still thrive," said Dr Tim Newbold, also of UCL.



Potential solutions include:



<ul><li>Avoiding intensive agriculture</li><li>Planting a wide range of crops</li><li>Preserving natural habitats near farmland, such as hedgerows and patches of forest.</li></ul>



Study researcher, Peter McCann, added: "We need to acknowledge how important insects are for the environment as a whole, and for human health and wellbeing, in order to address the threats we pose to them before many species are lost forever."

Climate change and farming driving insect decline

(BBC): The UK, US, and Australia will begin co-operating on research into hypersonic weapons and how to defend against them, the government has said.



The programme will be part of the AUKUS partnership, a security pact announced by the three countries last year.



It follows the development of hypersonic missiles by China and Russia and their purported use by Russia in Ukraine last month.



Hypersonic weapons are those that exceed five times the speed of sound.



They are harder to defend against because of their speed as well as the fact they fly at low altitudes - beyond the line of sight of ground-based radars - and can manoeuvre mid-flight.



The UK does not currently possess hypersonic missiles.



The US and Australia have an existing joint programme to develop the weapons but the UK government stressed the focus of the new venture would be on defence.



It said there were no plans for the UK to develop its own hypersonic weapons but the new programme would help it assess whether it would need to develop them in future.



It added the latest announcement was not related to Russia's use of the weapons in Ukraine but said the fact other nations were investing in them meant the UK had to think about how to defend against them.



On 19 March, Russia claimed to have used a hypersonic missile to destroy an arms depot in western Ukraine, and US military intelligence has suggested Russian forces have used them repeatedly since.



The attacks would mark the first use of hypersonic missiles in combat.



It came just months after China caught US intelligence by surprise when it tested two nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles.



Each circled the globe in low-orbit space before coming back down to Earth, the second missing its target by only about 24 miles (40 km).



The missile is thought to combine a so-called fractional orbital bombardment system, which sends missiles into a partial orbit of the Earth to strike from an unexpected direction, with a hypersonic glider, which remains in the outer atmosphere and is hard to detect until later into its flight.



The tests demonstrated China had far more advanced space capability than had previously been understood.



North Korea has also claimed to be in the process of testing hypersonic missiles.

Hypersonic missiles: UK, US, and Australia to boost defence co-operation

(BBC): UN scientists have unveiled a plan that they believe can limit the root causes of dangerous climate change.



A key UN body says in a report that there must be "rapid, deep and immediate" cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.



Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.



Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century.



After a contentious approval session where scientists and government officials went through the report line by line, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now published its guidance on what the world can do to avoid an extremely dangerous future.



First, the bad news - even if all the policies to cut carbon that governments had put in place by the end of 2020 were fully implemented, the world will still warm by 3.2C this century.



This finding has drawn the ire of the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.



"Some government and business leaders are saying one thing - but doing another. Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic."



That sort of temperature rise would see our planet hit by "unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, and widespread water shortages".



To avoid that fate, the world must keep the rise in temperatures at or under 1.5C this century, say researchers.



The good news is that this latest IPCC summary shows that it can be done, in what Mr Guterres calls a "viable and financially sound manner".



But keeping temperatures down will require massive changes to energy production, industry, transport, our consumption patterns and the way we treat nature.



To stay under 1.5C, according to the IPCC, means that carbon emissions from everything that we do, buy, use or eat must peak by 2025, and tumble rapidly after that, reaching net-zero by the middle of this century.



To put it in context, the amount of CO2 that the world has emitted in the last decade is the same amount that's left to us to stay under this key temperature threshold.



"I think the report tells us that we've reached the now-or-never point of limiting warming to 1.5C," said IPCC lead author Heleen De Coninck, who's Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation and Climate Change at Eindhoven University of Technology.



Speaking to BBC News she said: "We have to peak our greenhouse gas emissions before 2025 and after that, reduce them very rapidly.



"And we will have to do negative emissions or carbon dioxide removal in the second half of the century, shortly after 2050, in order to limit warming to 1.5C."



The next few years are critical, say the researchers, because if emissions aren't curbed by 2030, it will make it nigh on impossible to limit warming later this century.



Key to that in the short term will be how we generate energy. Luckily, solar panel and wind turbines have never been cheaper, having fallen in cost by around 85% over the past decade.



"It's game over for the fossil fuels that are fuelling both wars and climate chaos," said Kaisa Kosonen from Greenpeace, who was an observer at the IPCC approval session.



"There's no room for any new fossil fuel developments, and the coal and gas plants we already have need to close early."



But diets and lifestyles will also need changing, with huge scope for major carbon savings, according to the authors.



"Having the right policies, infrastructure and technology in place to enable changes to our lifestyles and behaviour can result in a 40-70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This offers significant untapped potential," said IPCC Co-chair Priyadarshi Shukla.



"The evidence also shows that these lifestyle changes can improve our health and wellbeing."



In practice, this means governments doing more to encourage walking and healthy eating, and putting in place the infrastructure for far more electric vehicles.



One of the most contentious aspects of the report concerns the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.



This can be done in a number of different ways, including through planting trees and making changes to farming practices.



But the report finds that to keep warming from going over the dangerous 1.5C threshold, we will need more than new forests.



Keeping temperatures down will require machines to remove CO2 directly from the atmosphere.



This is very contentious as the technology is new and currently very expensive.



Some participants in the IPCC process are highly sceptical that these approaches will work.



"The idea of quick emissions reductions and large negative emissions technologies are a concern," said Prof Arthur Petersen, from UCL, who was an observer in the approval session.



"There are a lot of pipe dreams in this report."

Climate change: IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming

(BBC): Wind and solar generated 10% of global electricity for the first time in 2021, a new analysis shows.



Fifty countries get more than a tenth of their power from wind and solar sources, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/global-electricity-review-2022/">research from Ember</a>, a climate and energy think tank.



As the world's economies rebounded from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, demand for energy soared.&nbsp;



Demand for electricity grew at a record pace. This saw a surge in coal power, rising at the fastest rate since 1985.



The research shows the growth in the need for electricity last year was the equivalent of adding a new India to the world's grid.



Solar and wind and other clean sources generated 38% of the world's electricity in 2021. For the first time wind turbines and solar panels generated 10% of the total.&nbsp;



The share coming from wind and sun has doubled since 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was signed.&nbsp;



The fastest switching to wind and solar took place in the Netherlands, Australia, and Vietnam. All three have moved a tenth of their electricity demand from fossil fuels to green sources in the last two years.&nbsp;



"The Netherlands is a great example of a more northern latitude country proving that it's not just where the Sun shines, it's also about having the right policy environment that makes the big difference in whether solar takes off," said Hannah Broadbent from Ember.



Vietnam also saw spectacular growth, particularly in solar which rose by over 300% in just one year.



"In the case of Vietnam, there was a massive step up in solar generation and it was driven by feed-in tariffs - money the government pays you for generating electricity - which made it very attractive for households and for utilities to be deploying large amounts of solar," said Dave Jones, Ember's global lead.



"What we saw with that was a massive step up in solar generation last year, which didn't just meet increased electricity demand, but it also led to a fall in both coal and gas generation."



Despite the growth and the fact that some countries like Denmark now get more than 50% of their electricity from wind and solar, coal power also saw a remarkable rise in 2021.



A large majority of the increased demand for electricity in 2021 was met by fossil fuels with coal fired electricity rising by 9%, the fastest rate since 1985.&nbsp;



Much of the rise in coal use was in Asian countries including China and India - but the increase in coal was not matched by gas use which increased globally by only 1%, indicating that rising prices for gas have made coal a more viable source of electricity.&nbsp;



"The last year has seen some really super high gas prices, where coal became cheaper than gas," said Dave Jones.



"What we're seeing right now is gas prices across Europe and across much of Asia being 10 times more expensive than they were this time last year, where coal is three times more expensive.&nbsp;



He called the price rises for both gas and coal: "a double reason for electricity systems to demand more clean electricity, because the economics have shifted so fundamentally."



The researchers say that despite the coal resurgence in 2021, major economies including the US, UK, Germany, and Canada are aiming to shift their grids to 100% electric within the next 15 years.&nbsp;



This switch is being driven by concerns over keeping the rise in the world's temperature under 1.5C this century.



To do that, scientists say that wind and solar need to grow at around 20% every year up to 2030.&nbsp;



The authors of this latest analysis say this is now "eminently possible".&nbsp;



The war in Ukraine could also give a push to electricity sources that don't depend on Russian imports of oil and gas.&nbsp;



"Wind and solar have arrived, and they offer a solution out of the multiple crises that the world is facing, whether it's a climate crisis, or the dependence on fossil fuels, this could be a real turning point," said Hannah Broadbent.

Wind and solar reach milestone as demand surges

(BBC): Australia has unveiled a defence agency focused on space, designed to counter Russia and China's ambitions.



Defence Minister Peter Dutton said the Defence Space Command would secure Australia's place in the cosmos.



Air Vice-Marshal Cath Roberts, who will lead it, said she was "scared" by Australia's inability to combat Beijing and Moscow's activities.



The US, Russia and China are all believed to have tested weapons that could destroy a satellite in space.



The agency's chief said a Chinese satellite could theoretically "take out" the National Broadband Network for regional Australia.



Her role includes increasing Australians' "national understanding" of space threats.



Vice-Marshal Roberts said that "we are really tight with the US" and "we can rely on them to an extent, but we need to accelerate the capability so that we can deal with the threats".



Mr Dutton said the Defence Space Command would initially be modest in scope, but that Australia would eventually need a "Space Force in the future" - a reference to the US Space Force launched in 2019.



He criticised "countries that see space as a territory for their taking, rather than one to be shared".



Space will take on "greater military significance" in this century, Mr Dutton added, warning against it becoming an arena for conflict between nations.



The new agency's members will come from Australia's army, navy and air force, and will include private contractors.



Australia announced plans for the new agency last year. It will fall under the air force.



It follows the creation of the United States' Space Force three years ago. That agency attracted some mockery on social media over its uniforms - with some asking why they needed to be camouflaged for use in space - and its official logo, which was said to resemble one from cult sci-fi TV series Star Trek.



The UK also launched a space command military centre in 2019.

Australia announces new 'Space Command' defense agency

(AP): NASA’s new space telescope has gazed into the distant universe and shown perfect vision: a spiky image of a faraway star photobombed by thousands of ancient galaxies.



The image released Wednesday from the James Webb Space Telescope is a test shot — not an official science observation — to see how its 18 hexagonal mirrors worked together for a single coordinated image taken 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away from Earth. Officials said it worked better than expected.



Last month, NASA looked at a much closer star with 18 separate images from its mirror segments.



Scientists said they were giddy as they watched the latest test photos arrive. NASA’s test image was aimed at a star 100 times fainter than the human eye can see — 2,000 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).



The shape of Webb’s mirrors and its filters made the shimmering star look more red and spiky but the background really stole the show.



“You can’t help but see those thousands of galaxies behind it, really gorgeous,” said Jane Rigby, Webb operations project scientist.



Those galaxies are several billions of years old. Eventually, scientists hope Webb will see so faraway and back in time that it will only be “a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang,” she said.



The first science images won’t come until late June or early July.



The $10 billion Webb — successor to the nearly 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope — blasted off from South America in December and reached its designated perch in January.

Space telescope’s image of star gets photobombed by galaxies

(BBC): Researchers believe there may be a planet that could sustain life, in the vicinity of a dying sun.



If confirmed, this would be the first time that a potentially life-supporting planet has been found orbiting such a star, called a "white dwarf".



The planet was detected in the star's "habitable zone", where it's neither too cold nor too hot to sustain life.



The study is published in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.



Prof Jay Farihi of University College London, who led the study, said the observation was completely new to astronomers.



"This is the first time that anything has been seen in the habitable zone of a white dwarf. And thus there is a possibility of life on another world orbiting it," he told BBC News.



While very large stars become black holes when they die, smaller ones like our own Sun become white dwarves - stars that have used up all their nuclear fuel and lost their outer layers.



They are usually the size of a planet, and emit a bluish-white light when first formed.



The possible planet, which is 117 light years away from Earth, is thought to be 60 times closer to the star than our planet is to the Sun.



The research team do not have direct evidence of the planet's existence - but the movements of 65 Moon-sized structures orbiting the white dwarf's habitable zone, suggest it is there. The structures' distance in relation to each other does not change, suggesting that they are under the influence of the gravity of a planet in the vicinity.



"It was a shock to the team," said Prof Farihi. "The motion was so eerily precise you couldn't make this stuff up."



The habitable zone is a band around the star where liquid water could exist on a planet, and therefore support life. It is often referred to as the "Goldilocks zone", because if the planet is too close to the star it will be too hot, and if too far it would be too cold, whereas inside the band conditions are "just right".



The results should act as a spur for astronomers to actively search for direct evidence of planets around white dwarfs.



"Usually in astronomy, if we find one, it usually means that it's common," said Prof Farihi.

Life could exist on planet orbiting 'white dwarf' star

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP): SpaceX and NASA are investigating a parachute issue that occurred on the last two capsule flights.



One of the four main parachutes was slow to inflate during the return of four astronauts to Earth last November. The same thing happened last week as a Dragon cargo capsule was bringing back science experiments from the International Space Station.



In both cases, the sluggish parachute eventually opened and inflated — although more than a minute late — and the capsules splashed down safely off the Florida coast.



Officials for SpaceX and NASA said Friday they want to better understand what’s happening, especially before launching another crew in a month or two. They’re looking at photographs and inspecting the parachutes for clues, taking “extra caution with this very critical system,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program.



“We’re not taking anything for granted,” SpaceX’s William Gerstenmaier, a former NASA official, told reporters.



SpaceX’s first private flight to the space station, with three ticket-buying businessmen and their retired astronaut escort, is set to blast off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on March 30. NASA’s next astronaut ferry flight would follow on April 15.



Officials said the lagging parachutes also occurred during development and in previous cargo missions, and could just be a natural feature of the multiple-chute design. Despite the slow opening of one of the four large chutes, the capsules still descended at a safe rate, they noted. The descent data was near normal, Gerstenmaier said.



Only three of four parachutes are needed for a safe splashdown off the Florida coast, according to officials.



Similar parachutes are used on Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule and NASA’s Orion moon capsule, neither of which has launched astronauts yet. These, too, sometimes lag when inflating, Stich said, and so the results of the SpaceX investigation will be shared.

SpaceX, NASA looking into sluggish chutes on last 2 flights

(AP): Get ready to learn more Greek letters. Scientists warn that omicron’s whirlwind advance practically ensures it won’t be the last version of the coronavirus to worry the world.



Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with a stronger patchwork of immunity from vaccines and prior illness.



That means more people in whom the virus can further evolve. Experts don’t know what the next variants will look like or how they might shape the pandemic, but they say there’s no guarantee the sequels of omicron will cause milder illness or that existing vaccines will work against them.



“The faster omicron spreads, the more opportunities there are for mutation, potentially leading to more variants,” Leonardo Martinez, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Boston University, said.



Since it emerged in mid-November, omicron has raced across the globe like fire through dry grass. Research shows the variant is at least twice as contagious as delta and at least four times as contagious as the original version of the virus.



Omicron is more likely than delta to reinfect individuals who previously had COVID-19 and to cause “breakthrough infections” in vaccinated people while also attacking the unvaccinated. The World Health Organization reported a record 15 million new COVID-19 cases for the week of Jan. 3-9, a 55% increase from the previous week.



Along with keeping comparatively healthy people out of work and school, the ease with which the variant spreads increases the odds the virus will infect and linger inside people with weakened immune systems - giving it more time to develop potent mutations.



“It’s the longer, persistent infections that seem to be the most likely breeding grounds for new variants,” said Dr. Stuart Campbell Ray, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s only when you have very widespread infection that you’re going to provide the opportunity for that to occur.”



Because omicron appears to cause less severe disease than delta, its behavior has kindled hope that it could be the start of a trend that eventually makes the virus milder like a common cold.



It’s a possibility, experts say, given that viruses don’t spread well if they kill their hosts very quickly. But viruses don’t always get less deadly over time.



A variant could also achieve its main goal - replicating - if infected people developed mild symptoms initially, spread the virus by interacting with others, then got very sick later, Ray explained by way of example.



“People have wondered whether the virus will evolve to mildness. But there’s no particular reason for it to do so,” he said. “I don’t think we can be confident that the virus will become less lethal over time.”



Getting progressively better at evading immunity helps a virus to survive over the long term. When SARS-CoV-2 first struck, no one was immune. But infections and vaccines have conferred at least some immunity to much of the world, so the virus must adapt.



There are many possible avenues for evolution. Animals could potentially incubate and unleash new variants. Pet dogs and cats, deer and farm-raised mink are only a few of the animals vulnerable to the virus, which can potentially mutate within them and leap back to people.



Another potential route: With both omicron and delta circulating, people may get double infections that could spawn what Ray calls “Frankenvariants,” hybrids with characteristics of both types.



When new variants do develop, scientists said it’s still very difficult to know from genetic features which ones might take off. For example, omicron has many more mutations than previous variants, around 30 in the spike protein that lets it attach to human cells. But the so-called IHU variant identified in France and being monitored by the WHO has 46 mutations and doesn’t seem to have spread much at all.



To curb the emergence of variants, scientists stress continuing with public health measures such as masking and getting vaccinated. While omicron is better able to evade immunity than delta, experts said, vaccines still offer protection and booster shots greatly reduce serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths.



Anne Thomas, a 64-year-old IT analyst in Westerly, Rhode Island, said she’s fully vaccinated and boosted and also tries to stay safe by mostly staying home while her state has one of the highest COVID-19 case rates in the U.S.



“I have no doubt at all that these viruses are going to continue to mutate and we’re going to be dealing with this for a very long time,” she said.



Ray likened vaccines to armor for humanity that greatly hinders viral spread even if it doesn’t completely stop it. For a virus that spreads exponentially, he said, “anything that curbs transmission can have a great effect.” Also, when vaccinated people get sick, Ray said their illness is usually milder and clears more quickly, leaving less time to spawn dangerous variants.



Experts say the virus won’t become endemic like the flu as long as global vaccination rates are so low. During a recent press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that protecting people from future variants — including those that may be fully resistant to today’s shots — depends on ending global vaccine inequity.



Tedros said he’d like to see 70% of people in every country vaccinated by mid-year. Currently, there are dozens of countries where less than a quarter of the population is fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. And in the United States, many people continue to resist available vaccines.



“These huge unvaccinated swaths in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere are basically variant factories,” said Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. “It’s been a colossal failure in global leadership that we have not been able to do this.”



In the meantime, new variants are inevitable, said Louis Mansky, director of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Minnesota.



With so many unvaccinated people, he said, “the virus is still kind of in control of what’s going on.”

Expect more worrisome variants after omicron, scientists say

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP): NASA’s new space telescope opened its huge, gold-plated, flower-shaped mirror Saturday, the final step in the observatory’s dramatic unfurling.



The last portion of the 21-foot (6.5-meter) mirror swung into place at flight controllers’ command, completing the unfolding of the James Webb Space Telescope.



“I’m emotional about it. What an amazing milestone. We see that beautiful pattern out there in the sky now,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, chief of NASA’s science missions.



More powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, the $10 billion Webb will scan the cosmos for light streaming from the first stars and galaxies formed 13.7 billion years ago. To accomplish this, NASA had to outfit Webb with the largest and most sensitive mirror ever launched — its “golden eye,” as scientists call it.



Webb is so big that it had to be folded orgami-style to fit in the rocket that soared from South America two weeks ago. The riskiest operation occurred earlier in the week, when the tennis court-size sunshield unfurled, providing subzero shade for the mirror and infrared detectors.



Flight controllers in Baltimore began opening the primary mirror Friday, unfolding the left side like a drop-leaf table. The mood was even more upbeat Saturday, with peppy music filling the control room as the right side snapped into place.



After applauding, the controllers immediately got back to work, latching everything down. They jumped to their feet, exchanged high-fives and cheered from behind masks when the operation was finally complete 2 1/2 hours later, doing their best to remain socially distant because of the global surge in COVID-19 cases.



“We have a deployed telescope on orbit, a magnificent telescope the likes of which the world has never seen,” Zurbuchen said, congratulating the team. “So how does it feel to make history, everybody? You just did it.”



His counterpart at the European Space Agency, astronomer Antonella Nota, noted that after years of preparation, the team made everything look “so amazingly easy.”



“This is the moment we have been waiting for, for so long,” she said.



Webb’s main mirror is made of beryllium, a lightweight yet sturdy and cold-resistant metal. Each of its 18 segments is coated with an ultra thin layer of gold, highly reflective of infrared light. The hexagonal, coffee table-size segments must be adjusted in the weeks ahead so they can focus as one on stars, galaxies and alien worlds that might hold atmospheric signs of life.



“It’s like we have 18 mirrors that are right now little prima donnas all doing their own thing, singing their own tune in whatever key they’re in, and we have to make them work like a chorus and that is a methodical, laborious process,” operations project scientist Jane Rigby told reporters.



Webb should reach its destination 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away in another two weeks; it’s already more than 667,000 miles (1 million kilometers) from Earth since its Christmas Day launch. If all continues to go well, science observations will begin this summer. Astronomers hope to peer back to within 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang, closer than Hubble has achieved.



Project manager Bill Ochs stressed the team isn’t letting its guard down, despite the unprecedented successes of the past two weeks.



“It’s not downhill from here. It’s all kind of a level playing field,” he said.

Space telescope’s ‘golden eye’ opens, last major hurdle

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP): NASA’s new space telescope is on the verge of completing the riskiest part of its mission — unfolding and tightening a huge sunshade — after ground controllers fixed a pair of problems, officials said Monday.



The tennis court-size sunshield on the James Webb Space Telescope is now fully open and in the process of being stretched tight. The operation should be complete by Wednesday.



The $10 billion telescope — the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever launched — rocketed away Christmas Day from French Guiana. Its sunshield and primary mirror had to be folded to fit into the European Ariane rocket.



The sunshield is vital for keeping Webb’s infrared-sensing instruments at subzero temperatures, as they scan the universe for the first stars and galaxies, and examine the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible signs of life.



Getting the sunshield extended last Friday “was really a huge achievement for us,” said project manager Bill Ochs. All 107 release pins opened properly.



But there have been a few obstacles.



Flight controllers in Maryland had to reset Webb’s solar panel to draw more power. The observatory — considered the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope — was never in any danger, with a constant power flow, said Amy Lo, a lead engineer for the telescope’s prime contractor, Northrop Grumman.



They also repointed the telescope to limit sunlight on six overheating motors. The motors cooled enough to begin securing the sunshield, a three-day process that can be halted if the problem crops up again, officials said.



“Everything is hunky-dory and doing well now,” Lo said.



Ochs expects the tightening of the sunshield to be drama-free.



“The best thing for operations is boring, and that’s what we anticipate over the next three days, is to be boring,” he told reporters in a teleconference.



If that holds true, the telescope’s gold-plated mirror — more than 21 feet (6.5 meters) across — could unfold as soon as this weekend.



Webb should reach its destination 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away by the end of January. As of Monday, the telescope was more than halfway there. The infrared telescope should begin observing the cosmos by the end of June, ultimately unveiling the first stars and galaxies formed in the universe 13.7 billion years ago. That’s a mere 100 million years after the universe-creating Big Bang.



Launched in 1990, Hubble, which sees primarily visible light, has peered as far back as 13.4 billion years ago. Astronomers hope to close the gap with Webb, which is 100 times more powerful.



In another bit of good news Monday, officials said they expect Webb to last well beyond the originally anticipated 10 years based on its fuel efficiency.

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