The Largest Space Telescope Ever Launched Successfully
Going beyond the horizons to explore mysterious worlds, studying how the universe was born, exploring the possibilities of life existing in the galaxy—these are the intriguing mission objectives of the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope. It’s not a science fiction movie we are talking about, it’s the setting up of the much anticipated and eagerly awaited Hubble Telescope successor.
It was on the 25th of December, Christmas day, that NASA made the daring launch in a partnership with the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency from its base in the French Guiana. The revolutionary new telescope is capable of looking nearly a million miles into space from the earth.
Webb Telescope- The Challenging Journey Ahead
The telescope has to go through a very difficult mechanical maneuver while it’s on its journey—having to assemble itself. It’s such a large telescope, it had to be folded into the rocket. Therefore, as the weeks pass by, the telescope has to complete the complicated task of unfurling the various components in it, right from the sun shield to the mirrors. NASA says that the mission faces 300 or more potential technical problems and failure in any of them could doom the entire mission.
What has space scientists and astronomers thrilled is that if the challenges are successfully met, the Web telescope will bring about a revolution in astronomy by showing things humanity has never seen before. Sara Seager, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT says that the launch of the new telescope is the result of decades, if not centuries of astronomical research and scientific effort bearing fruit.
Even before the Hubble Telescope had been launched in 1990, scientists had started visualizing a follow-up. While the James Webb telescope, it is planned will hover in space for more than three decades, uncertainty still shrouds how long it’ll be able to send us photographs and scans of the universe.
Overcoming Challenges- What Webb Telescope Promises
The original launch of the Webb was planned way back in 2010. The cost of the project was pegged at around $1 billion. Its price tag has shot up to $10 billion and what’s more, it has been overdue for a long, long time. But scientists are optimistic and they say that it’s worth the wait as the James Webb Telescope will reveal a lot more about our universe than we ever dreamt of.
It has Caitlin Casey, assistant professor, astronomy, University of Texas, Austin thrilled and she says that the James Webb Telescope is taking the study of space right to the edge from where we can observe the universe. Being able to see what lies there is an exciting thought indeed.
The Webb surpasses its predecessor, the Hubble in more ways than one. With the Webb, scientists can now not only look farther into space but also further back into time. It’ll take us on an exciting journey of exploring the first stars and galaxies the universe has. It’ll enable scientists to discover and study many exoplanets—planets that are believed to go around stars other than the sun. Moreover, the Webb Telescope will also search for any signs of life far into space.
The Webb—A Giant Leap In Space Technology
The launch of the Hubble Telescope, named after the celebrated astronomer Edwin Hubble was itself a momentous chapter in the study of astronomy. If the telescope is set up on the earth, the favored locations are mountaintops or deserts so we have the best chance to view the space away from pollution and bright lights.
However, the atmosphere’s luminescence and the slight haze still mar the viewing. Putting the James Webb Telescope is the equivalent of putting a telescope on “the ultimate mountaintop,” explains NASA. After all, the best place to view space from is, of course, space itself.
In its 30-year run, the Hubble has shown us a lot about space that was hitherto unknown, like the black holes or what happens when stars explode. Webb seeks to take things farther by pushing the boundaries that Hubble had set. Its most powerful observations have made scientists conclude that the universe is expanding rapidly being propelled by a mysterious force simply called “dark energy.”
Webb is poised to give astronomers a peek into that expansion. Amber Straughn, a NASA astrophysicist involved in the Webb project gushes that we shall get a telescope 100 times more powerful than the Hubble.
The Webb Telescope Can See Very Old Infrared Light
The type of light the Webb collects gives space scientists an added advantage. The human eye sees only a narrow band as visible light. However, there’s a lot of light in the universe outside this range—the higher-frequency and higher-energy forms like the ultraviolet, gamma rays. Lower energy lights with longer wavelengths like infrared, microwaves, radio also exist.
The Hubble Telescope can collect only visible light, ultraviolet, and somewhat infrared. On the other hand, the Webb is primarily an infrared telescope capable of seeing light existing in a wavelength that’s longer than what our eyes can see. It’s what allows the Webb Telescope to look further back into time.
Being able to capture infrared light, the Webb can use the capability to look at exoplanets. It’s because, as Kevin Stevenson, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory astronomer explains, the earth is seen to peak in the infrared. Therefore, to see an earth-like planet that’s a part of another solar system, we shall need to observe infrared lights as that’s where the Earth’s light emits from.
Conclusion
The Webb, which is the size of a tennis court far, surpasses the Hubble, the size of a school bus for the superior technology it uses. Being at the edge of the observable universe, gives us a deeper peek into space that was till now only imagined. It’s a major milestone in NASA’s technological achievements, a much-coveted feather in its cap. The Webb is therefore poised to answer questions about space that so far remained unanswered.
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