Gold has mainly been the domain of ‘goldbugs’ since the 2008 financial crisis. The metal has oft been discussed in the context of a safehaven from economic volatility. Even within the precious metals industry, gold’s industrial uses are often downplayed at least compared to silver.

Nasa is reminding us the reality is much different. The US space agency recently finished a pertinent phase of construction on the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which is comprised of 18 golden, hexagonal plates which are the length of tennis courts.

The telescope hs taken nearly twenty years to build, and Nasa tested it for the first time last week. The largest space telescope ever, James Webb is planned to take the place of the Hubble Telescope and help humans look at 13 billion years of space.

Charles Bolden, a Nasa administrator, made the announcement that the 18 gold-coated, hexagonal plates had been put together.

“We’ve done two decades of innovation and hard work, and this is the result,” project scientist John Mather stated Wednesday. “We’re opening up a whole new territory of astronomy.”

Designed to be more powerful than the Hubble telescope, scientists hope James Webb will show even more auroras, supernovas, dark matter and billions of stars than the Hubble telescope.

Gold could thus be fundamental to finding life on other planets. “We’d like to know if another planet out there has enough water to have an ocean, and we think we can do that,” Mather said.

Bolden said scientists must “get it right here on the ground” to avoid disappointment as with Hubble.“Our lessons learned from the Hubble were, if you really care about something, you’ve got to measure it at least twice,” Mather continued.

It turns out gold is not only a solid investment. It will also help mankind see stars and planets from the earliest points of the universe’s existence.

“Nasa has always sought to unravel the mysteries of our universe; to find out where we come from, where we are going, and whether we are alone in the universe,” he stated. “We are building the James Webb Space Telescope to answer these age-old questions.”