We want to understand much more about when the first stars were made.

I'm sure we all like the feeling of the warmth of the sun on our face.

For an infrared telescope, however, it's not a good thing.

James Webb is going to be the biggest and best time machine that we've ever had.

Hello, welcome to the supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society.

With me, science journalist Izzy Clark and astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smytherst. And thank you very much

to the UK Space Agency for sponsoring this episode, the one we've all been waiting for. Finally,

we're talking about the James Webb Space Telescope.

It's an episode that has been almost as highly anticipated as the telescope itself, is it?

Almost, but not quite.

But why is this telescope so impressive?

We'll hear from NASA's Keith Parrish, who's the observatory manager for Webb and Professor Gillian Wright, whose principal investigator for Miri, the infrared

instrument that will help us see stars and planets born from clouds of dust. I can't wait.

And it's not the Supermassive podcast without Dr. Robert Massey, the deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society.

So, Robert, this has been a long time coming.

So how is the James Webb Space Telescope going to change how we observe the universe?

Your observer has been a long time coming.

And actually, you know, fascinatingly for me, the first idea

of a space telescope of any kind was proposed right back in 1946, so even before the space age

started. But we've got so used to having Hubble, and the fantastic images it's delivered for more than

30 years now, that we're now finally looking to the James Webb Telescope launching is a phenomenal point in time.

And it's just so different, isn't it? It's an infrared telescope, so it'll be unlike Hubble in

...