In the 2040s, NASA will launch a space telescope called the Habitable Global Observatory, which can help find extraterrestrial life.

Although it’s only been a year since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reached its final location, as scientists began working with it, NASA specialists are already planning a successor. This will be the Habitable Global Observatory (HWO), like JWST, will also be built with a multi-billion dollar budget and, according to plans, will be able to launch in the early 2040s.

The main mission of the instrument will be to search for Earth-like exoplanets in outer space. Although according to Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, the project is still in the early stages of planning, the details revealed so far reveal a lot about the device. Interesting geometry.

First of all, here is the name of the telescope. The name of the Global Habitable Observatory can be roughly translated into Hungarian as a habitable worlds space telescope, which indicates that NASA not only wants to search for exoplanets, but also wants to know if there is a habitable planet like Earth in the universe.

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If it finds one, the device will likely find extraterrestrial life, too. In recent years, NASA has focused more and more on answering this question. The James Webb Space Telescope has just discovered its first exoplanet, and HWO will likely surpass that milestone.

According to the report, HWO will be designed so that it can be assembled and developed in space with the help of robots. This is all a huge improvement over the fact that there is no such possibility with JWST, so at the end of its planned 10-year mission, it probably won’t be able to use it anymore.

According to the plans, the HWO will be installed 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the same way as James Webb, but the newer device will record optical light instead of infrared.

It is not known the actual cost of the space telescope, nor whether it will actually be able to start its journey in the 2040s. The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope has been delayed for a long time, and the costs of its construction are gone.

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