The universe's largest telescope was designed to fold like origami

Space · Published 13 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: To see the first galaxies ever formed, NASA had to build a telescope as large as a tennis court. But because no rocket could carry such a massive structure, engineers had to design it to fold into a compact shape before unfolding like a transformer in deep space.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) serves as NASA's flagship science project, designed to observe every phase of the universe's history. Its primary mission includes capturing the first luminous glows following the Big Bang, which occurred approximately 200 million years after the universe began. By utilizing infrared radiation—light that is invisible to the human eye but detectable as heat—the telescope can peer through dense cosmic dust clouds to witness the birth of new stars and planets.

The engineering required to deploy such a massive instrument is unprecedented. The telescope is roughly the size of a tennis court and as tall as a three-story building. To reach orbit, it was designed with a folding mechanism, allowing it to fit inside a rocket and unfold 'origami-style' once in space. A critical component of this deployment is the sunshield, which protects the instruments from the Sun's heat. Over 600 degrees Fahrenheit is the thermal gap across the Webb telescope's light-exposed and dark areas.

To maximize its power while maintaining portability, the telescope features a segmented mirror made of 18 smaller mirrors that fit together like a puzzle. These mirrors are coated in a thin layer of gold specifically to reflect infrared light efficiently. By combining these technologies, the JWST allows astronomers to study objects so distant that the expansion of the universe has shifted their light from visible to infrared, while also searching for the chemical ingredients for life on planets orbiting other stars.

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