Kids Discovery Museum on Bainbridge Island has joined almost 500 sites across the country to celebrate the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s next great space science observatory.

KiDiMu will offer a range of public programs to bring the excitement of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) to children and their families.

KiDiMu is hosting a free launch celebration Nov. 20 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Corinne Wolffe, executive director of KiDiMu, said: “We have partnered with Battle Point Astronomical Association to help our community celebrate this amazing feat of science and engineering. People of all ages and backgrounds will find inspiration in the Webb mission, which will fundamentally change our understanding of the universe for this generation and many to come.”

Webb is the largest and most complex space science telescope ever built – the premier observatory of the next decade. This international mission, led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies, will launch in December.

The observatory will provide a new view of the cosmos and push the field of astronomy into a new era. The telescope will observe the universe in the infrared, peering inside dust clouds to study light from distant parts of the universe for the first time – the first galaxies that formed about 13.5 billion years ago – and give us insight into how our universe formed.

It will also explore distant worlds in other solar systems, as well as objects in our own solar system. Webb will extend the scientific discoveries of other NASA missions like the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.