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BOULDER — When the James Webb Space Telescope launches into the Cosmos in 2019, its technology will be 7x more powerful than Hubble’s and it will be able to look back more than 13 billion years.

The JWST will travel about a million miles away from Earth. That’s where it will stay for the next decade, capturing images of deep space and any signs of life on the Universe’s billions of exoplanets.

“We should be able to see some of those signatures of life – which we haven’t been able to necessary been able to detect with the instrumentation that we have today,” said Allison Barto, Ball Aerospace’s Program Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope.

Ball Aerospace in Boulder created the telescope’s optic lens. With its high-tech infrared technology, the JWST will be able to see the first luminous glow after the Big Bang.

“That very first generation of stars and galaxies,” said Barto.

For more information on the telescope, click here for NASA’s write-up. Or select play on the video above to watch Kevin Torres’ Unique 2 Colorado series. If you have a story idea that’s Unique 2 Colorado, message Kevin Torres on Facebook.