The Webb Telescope Orbits the Sun, Not the Earth

The Hubble Space Telescope circles the Earth a few hundred miles up. Its successor went somewhere quite different. NASA states that the James Webb Space Telescope is not in orbit around the Earth. It orbits the Sun, 1.5 million kilometers, or 1 million miles, away from the Earth, at what is called the second Lagrange point, or L2. What is special about this orbit, NASA explains, is that it lets the telescope stay in line with the Earth as it moves around the Sun. That allows the large sunshield to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon. It took roughly 30 days for Webb to reach the start of its orbit, although it needed only 3 days to get as far away as the Moon’s orbit.