NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, built to give the world a glimpse of the universe as it existed when the first galaxies formed, was launched by rocket early Saturday from South America’s northeastern coast, opening a new era of astronomy. The revolutionary $9 billion infrared telescope, hailed by NASA as the premiere space-science observatory of the next decade, was carried aloft inside the cargo bay of an Ariane 5 rocket that blasted off at about 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT) from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) launch base in French Guiana. The flawless Christmas Day launch, with a countdown conducted in French, was carried live on a joint NASA-ESA webcast. After a 27-minute ride into space, the 14,000-pound instrument was released from the upper stage of the French-built rocket, and should gradually unfurl to nearly the size of a tennis court over the next 13 days as it sails onward …