The $ 10 billion James Webb telescope has left Earth to show the first stars to illuminate the universe, BBC reports.

The latest space telescope has been launched into the skies by an Ariane rocket from the Kourou launch site in French Guiana.

The Webb, named after one of the architects of the Apollo moon landing, is the successor to the Hubble Telescope.

Engineers working with space agencies in the US, Europe and Canada have built a new telescope 100 times more powerful.

The launch of the satellite was awaited with impatience, but at the same time with a great deal of alarm. Thousands of people around the world have worked on the project over the past 30 years, and while the Ariane is a very reliable vehicle when it comes to rockets, there are no guarantees.

After separation from the launch vehicle, the spacecraft will begin a gradual deployment that will last 29 days, RIA Novosti notes.

The most difficult and risky, according to NASA, will be the deployment of the main mirror and heat shield "Webb", which should protect the observatory from radiation from the Earth, the Moon and the Sun.

The new telescope should take a position in a halo orbit at the L2 Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system. It is expected that the first scientific data from "James Webb" will be available to researchers six months after the start, in another year they will become publicly available.