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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63130 Medium James Webb Space Telescope basics

Read the following passage.

A. The James Webb Space Telescope was the result of more than 20 years of planning and development. It is a joint effort of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Canada's part was two pieces of hardware, built by Honeywell and fully funded by the CSA. The Fine Guidance Sensor lets the telescope work out its position, find its targets and stay locked on them with high precision. The second piece, a science instrument called NIRISS, was designed to study starlight passing through the atmospheres of planets around other stars. In return, Canadian scientists receive a guaranteed share of observing time.

B. Webb left Earth on December 25, 2021, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket launched from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. Because it was too large to fit inside the rocket when open, it was folded up like origami. Unfolding took about two weeks, and the trip to its final position took about two more. The telescope now circles a point called L2, some 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, and a sunshield the size of a tennis court protects it from the Sun's heat. Its main mirror, 6.5 metres wide, is made of 18 gold-coated segments. Over months of commissioning, engineers aligned the segments so that they would act as a single mirror.

C. The first full-colour image was released the following July. Called Webb's First Deep Field, it showed thousands of galaxies in a patch of sky about as big as a grain of sand held at arm's length. NASA described it as the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far. The full set of first images followed on July 12. Infrared matters because light from the most distant galaxies has been stretched into longer wavelengths as the universe expands. Infrared light can also pass through clouds of dust, where new stars and planets are forming.

D. Today, astronomers from around the world compete for time on the telescope. For Cycle 5, its fifth year of operations, the Space Telescope Science Institute reviewed a record 2,855 proposals and in March 2026 announced 254 selected programs. They include about 8,009 hours of prime observing time, and the teams behind them come from 37 countries, including seven Canadian provinces. Canadian astronomers have access to 5 per cent of the time set aside for these general programs. A team has exclusive use of its data for one year. After that, the observations are made available to other scientists and the public.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
Teams chosen in the selection announced in spring 2026 include researchers from seven parts of Canada.

- 2.
Staff from the company that built Canada's hardware carried out the mirror alignment in space.

- 3.
One firm made both of Canada's contributions, and the country's space agency covered their whole cost.

- 4.
Getting to its working location took roughly as long as opening up after launch.

- 5.
The light for the first deep field picture was collected over several days.

- 6.
Once a set period ends, the results become open to researchers outside the team and to everyone else.

- 7.
As space grows, light from the farthest star systems is pulled out into longer waves.

- 8.
For several months after launch, the separate mirror pieces were adjusted until they worked together.

- 9.
Close to three thousand plans were considered in the selection announced in spring 2026.

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