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A spacecraft is placed at a Lagrange point in our solar system where it is far away from the Sun. Which of the following this point could be?
Explanation
Lagrange points are specific locations in space where the gravitational pull of two large masses (like the Sun and Earth) equals the centripetal force required for a small object to move with them. In the Sun-Earth system, there are five such points. L1 is situated between the Sun and the Earth, meaning it is closer to the Sun than Earth is. In contrast, L2 is located on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, roughly 1.5 million km away from Earth. This positioning makes L2 the point that is "far away" from the Sun (further than Earth's orbit). This location is ideal for observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) because the Earth acts as a shield, allowing the spacecraft to maintain the extremely low temperatures necessary for infrared astronomy by staying away from the Sun's intense heat and light.