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Astronomers meeting in Tucson this week are hoping that a virtual time machine — a powerful space telescope now being built — will soon let them peer into the origins of the universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope, named for the pioneering Apollo-era NASA director, is the most powerful space telescope devised so far and is set for a 2013 launch.

The infrared telescope with a 21-foot diameter main mirror, a collaboration among NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, will seek out even the faintest and most distant bodies in the universe.

More than 1,000 people from 17 countries are involved in designing and building the telescope.

Many of those lining up chores for this successor to the Hubble Space Telescope are in Tucson this week at a conference, "Astrophysics in the Next Decade."

Some of them have expectations for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and other planned and hoped-for technological wonders, that they say could drastically change what is known about our universe.

"We have a long way to go" in understanding dark matter and some of the other mysteries of the universe, said Harvard professor Avi Loeb. "We have some substantial gaps in our understanding."

Loeb, speaking Tuesday at a news teleconference for science writers, estimated that investigations into the first light of the universe and answering cosmology's big questions could "go on for centuries."

Asked what they would consider the "perfect telescope," most of the panelists had an idea for ways to deepen knowledge in their area of expertise.

"I would build some big monster telescope that could be used in all sorts of unpredictable ways," said the University of Hawaii's David Jewitt. "We can't see very far," even in our own solar system, Jewitt said.

Jewitt pointed out that discoveries in just the last few decades, such as the 1992 discovery of the Kuiper Belt Objects, "changed the way we think about our solar system."

"For some of us the JWST is that dream telescope," said Alan Dressler of the Carnegie Observatories.

Sara Seager, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, expressed an interest in reviving a telescope project — known as the Terrestrial Planet Finder — that would search for planets in distant solar systems. It would have the ability to find them even though they are obscured by stars billions of times brighter.

Seager said she expects that once technological problems are overcome, a Terrestrial Planet Finder will be built, probably in the next 25 years.

"TPF is not completely dead," said Seager. "There are still technical studies going on."

Getting their wishes granted, however, might not prepare them for what they'll find. There may be surprises far outside the range of expectations, Loeb noted.

"Astronomy," he said, "is an ongoing process. We have a long way to go." So far, "we have just a snapshot of the universe. And it could develop in ways other than what we anticipate."