Shawdesh Desk:

The biggest space telescope ever conceived is scheduled to go into orbit in the coming hours.

The $10bn James Webb Space Telescope will be launched on a European Ariane rocket from French Guiana, BBC reported.

It’s a project that has taken 30 years to design and build and is regarded as one of the grand scientific endeavours of the 21st Century.

Webb’s goal will be to try to image the very first stars and galaxies to shine in the Universe.

It will also have the power to probe the atmospheres of distant planets to look for gases that might hint at the presence of life.