JWST’s Weird Orbit

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Where exactly is the James Webb Space Telescope located? Most people would assume it orbits the Earth like Hubble does, [music] but it doesn't. The JWST orbits the Sun about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth at a special location called [music] a Lagrange point, Lagrange point two specifically.

[00:00:16]Lagrange points are five positions in the Sun-Earth system where the gravitational [music] pull of the Sun and Earth balance out just enough that a smaller object like a spacecraft can hold its position with just minor thruster adjustments. The actual position and the orbit of the JWST would look something like this. And putting JWST at L2 specifically wasn't an accident. JWST [music] shoots infrared light, which is essentially heat, and due to the Sun being the hottest object in the solar system would contaminate any observation made. At L2, the Earth and Sun are always behind the telescope at the same time. So, [music] the JWST faces away from the Sun permanently and captures the faintest heat signals in the universe.