shed light on the opaque world who's behind her benefits and why are they a threat to whistle? oh, peak wolves starts january 5th on d w a. ah ah, this is dw news live from berlin blasting off for a new era of astronomy. a revolutionary new telescope is launched into space. it's home, the wet james web telescope will be able to tell us more about the origins of the universe. also coming up, thousands take to the streets of sudan, i'm calling for

a democracy after 2 months, a 2 months after a military coup, security forces, fire, tear gas mas birth, the crowns, and cut off internet service. in a bid to stop the latest protest. and on his annual christmas address, german president, frank walter, shine mire, appeals for unity amid the tensions and frustrations of the pandemic. and he, thanks the silent majority who chose to get vaccinated. ah, i'm mary evans, dean, it's good to have you with us. scientists are celebrating the launch of the most powerful telescope ever built. the james web space telescope lifted off a border rocket from the european space agency base in french guiana. is home

little, provide new in science about the origins of the universe and possibly extra terrestrial life. and we have in store this question, a new era of space exploration takes off on board the biggest and most advanced astronomical observatory ever launched. the james web space telescope will help solve mysteries about the formation of stars, and scan exit planets for signs of life celebrations back on earth at the european space agency space in french kiana. scientists are ecstatic about the discoveries to come, wept mission to understand exile planets. i think goes really to some of the core of our humanity. these fundamental questions of, are we alone in a universe? where do we come from? where do we go? the universe is so huge, and i think that out there somewhere there will be life for we don't know. we have

to build large instruments to tell. and where we'll make a big leap in that direction. it took some 3 decades of work and almost $10000000000.00 to build the giant telescope. teams from european canadian and u. s. space agencies collaborated on the development the massive gold plated mirror and its tennis court sized sun shield were designed to fold up into the launch rocket. at its core, a powerful infrared lens which can penetrate clouds of gas and dust deep into pots of time and space, never before observed. or we have had some infrared telescopes in the past, but they've been much, much smaller than web. so there will be many powerful tools that this telescope will have that just were had not been available to us in the past. so it's going to be that's why it's revolutionary, why we're all excited about it. the james web telescope is now traveling to its

final destination more than 4 times further than the moon. it will be 6 months before it can collect scientific data. a long wait for scientists. there barely a blip in the soon to be revealed time span of the universe. and we can now speak to dr. stephanie milan. she's a planetary scientists at nasa goddard space flight center in greenbelt, maryland. dr. milan, it's so great at to have you on the program, so we understand you're part of the team behind the james web space telescope. so can you tell us, 1st of all, what you're expecting to see with this telescope? and honestly, will we see signs of extraterrestrial life? absolutely. we are expecting to actually see the 1st stars and galaxies of our universe. those that formed right after the big bang after all of the chaos from

the big bag. and we're going to be looking at planets around other stars and trying to search for earth 2 point. oh, we're looking not necessarily for life itself, but we're going to be looking at atmospheres of planets to see whether or not any of those atmosphere is actually looked like our own. or maybe they have a unique chemistry that would suggest that there's something going on that perturbing that planet. be it a geologic process or possibly a biologic process, but something that will intrigue enough that will do some followup studies. not only with j w s t, but also with other facilities in the future. so this telescope was launched to day and what happens next? how soon can we actually see the images? it was a huge milestone for us today to get launched. though we still have a long journey ahead, we're going a 1000000 miles away from the earth, and we have

a month to get there. so within the next month, we will be on our journey to the 2nd look branch point. but also on that journey, we're going to be unfolding the telescope because it had to be folded up to fit inside the ferrying of the rocket. we now have to do all of these deployments. there's over $300.00 points of failure to do this. so we still have quite a few challenges to get through over the next month. once we're there, we're going to be commissioning the telescope. we have to focus the mirror. we have to turn on the instrument and make sure everything's working properly before we have our 1st science institute, our images that can be released to the public. so after about 6 months time, that's when you can expect to see the 1st data coming from j, w s t. and the 1st image is and when science is going to begin for the community. so i guess we still have to be a little bit patient. now. we used to consider the famous hubble telescope as being

revolutionary. will the james web space telescope than completely replace the hubble telescope and just how much more advanced is the new one? so it is not going to replace the hubble space telescope. in fact, hubble is still operational and healthy. j. w s t is actually very complimentary to hubble space telescope, so humble as an optical telescope. it seems like the same way that you and i do where is the james web space telescope has an infrared telescope, so it actually is almost like using night vision goggles. we're looking for thermal energy or heat from objects around the solar system in our galaxy and in the universe. it is going to be revolutionary because we have access now to these, these wavelengths and sensitivity a capability with a james web space telescope that we haven't had with any other facility. so it's like taking hovel, moving it to a whole different area of science,

and really started studying some of the fundamental things that we haven't been able to to really understand with the hubble space telescope, just due to the nature of the, the observatory itself. so j ws t is definitely going to rewrite the textbooks and it's going to be as revolutionary as the hubble space telescope was for for the last generation. dr. stephanie milan from nasa gutters phase flight center. thank you so much for all of your insights. thank you. so much for having me. all right, let's turn our attention it to sudan now where thousands of people have been protesting in the capital cartoon there. calling for a transition to civilian rule 2 months after a military coup. security forces, fire tear gas and restricted phone lines and internet services in an effort to stop the rallies. sudan is currently led by an interim government of civilian and military leaders bound to the pro democracy movement is demanding that the military step back from politics. let's bring in the w africa,

correspond and felix. marina has been following the story for us from nairobi. hello to you feel like so. what is the latest that you've been hearing from sedans, capital i saw that there was hundreds of thousands of protesters who flocked vested in his capital. i called tomb aaliyah to day, but this particular evening a number of them have been retreating to home. the police use excess force. a lot of tear gas counties does. why use labor, munitions? why use? and what are cardinals? where i used to be spastic crowds. a number for testers have actually been arrested feast evening and they people continue to see that they will keep on piling a little pressure on the military so that they can see that the military has boxed down. right, well as we know the protesters are, are calling for the military to back down, but how likely is it that they're going to do that it is very

unlikely that the military will actually stepped down or back down. and based on the resent development cause like earlier today, the internet was cut off. so people who are not able to communicate amongst themselves. and so they were not able to mobilize as enough, but a protest i talked to this particular evening said that the military seems to be tired in getting tad, we've had what the protest, those are continuously doing to mount pressure on them. but it is very unlikely because even the prime minister who was reinstated still has his powers clipped by the same military that people expecting to bog down. so whether the military will back down, it's very highly unlikely, especially following that he's in development. there was dw africa correspondent, felix marina. felix. thank you so much for your reporting now to some of the other stories making news around the world for me and mar,

military has been accused of killing at least 30 people from the ethnic. karen minority in the countries east witnesses said they were killed while trying to fleet. fighting between the army and resistance groups. mean mars military government has not commented on the allegations. more than a 100 rescued migrants have disembarked the vessel ocean viking in sicily. the boat from the organisation eso asthma to me, rescued the migrants 9 days ago as they were trying to cross from libya to europe in a rubber dingey. according to the crew, there were 31 miners among them, most of them, unaccompanied. po francis has delivered his annual christmas address from the balcony of saint peter's basilica will be at or beat meaning to the city and the world. the pontiff prayed for more corona virus vaccines to reach the world's poorest nations. and for peace in war torn countries like syria and yemen,

amid rising corona virus cases in italy, the crowd was much smaller than in previous years. while german president frog welders di meyer has delivered his annual christmas address with a major focus this year on the pandemic, he urged germans to continue to respect each other to spine disagreements over corona virus restrictions and vaccines. the president also looked back at some of the key events of the year, including the change of government at home and the taliban takeover in afghanistan . 2021 has been an exhausting year for germany. on the political stage, the medical era indeed, and september's general election marked a turning point. the president christmas message praised the democratic handover of power in what he called an atmosphere of mutual respect. but it was

also the year when the taliban swept to power across afghanistan. bringing postwar germany is largest overseas military operation to an end. western forces pulled back and the buddhist van flew home to many. it looked like failure. stein my acknowledge that as well as other clouds on the international horizon, the ones that are daunting on we remember our soldiers who returned home from afghanistan and also the people who have remained there amid suffering and star vacant. we are concerned by the news we hear from many regions of our turbulent world, also, and particularly from eastern europe, as of the author. but the president's message, as is traditional, was also one of hope. he prays the solidarity people show during the severe some of floods in germany, especially the volunteers who helped with the clean up, gave money and time. so the rebuilding could begin. as the year ends,

the coven, 19 crises, still looms over national life. protests against government rules have flared up across germany. but stone maya said, even from the pandemic, positive lessons can be learned. this building, we say by half the 2 years frustration is growing. irritability is widespread, though we're increasingly seeing alienation and regrettably open aggression. the democracy is true that in a democracy, we do not all have to be of the same opinion. but i appeal to you to remember this . we are one country on the pandemic is over. we need still to be able to look one another in the eye. and when the pandemic is over, we still want to live with each other of nafta upon the me. not mitten, underly in his address, the president even posed a philosophical question. what is freedom? he suggested it sometimes means accepting restrictions in order to help others.

that notion of solidarity and sacrifice may be needed still in the year ahead. you're up to date and dw news and don't forget you can get lots more news in information. just follow us on instagram and twitter at d. w. news as well as on our on our website. that's d w dot com. stay tuned for dark film riding the rails across mongolian, and they're in evans, dean from me and the entire news team merry christmas to all of you celebrating to thanks for watching. take your time for an experiment about time. it can be measured precisely. and yet.