What is the James Webb space telescope?
It is an infrared observatory which is orbiting the Sun, currently as you read this and is about 1 million miles away from the earth to discover the first galaxies that formed in the early universe and to see Stars forming planetary systems. An “infrared observatory” contains two elements, infrared and observatory. Observatory being a place or structure which is equipped for the study and observation of natural astronomical phenomena, and in this case, it’s an infrared observatory which basically means it uses infrared light, a type of radiation present outside the visible spectrum at the red end. It is NASA’s biggest, most powerful telescope ever to be put in space. There are big telescopes on the ground, but nothing of this nature and complexity in space
How is The Webb better?
The James Webb space telescope, also called JWST or The Webb is much more advanced and powerful than its predecessors. The Hubble. one of Webb’s predecessors was a great success which was launched in 1990, it even changed our fundamental understanding of the universe. Talking about the Webb, it is at least a hundred times better and greater than the Hubble. It also has a much larger mirror (light-catching area) than the Hubble. With a massive mirror and the ability to see much more light, it can view billions of years back into the history and capture the faint, red-shifted light from the very beginning Of the universe. Now. a question arises; why do we want to look at the first stars and why is it important? After the big bang, when the universe was created, it only contained three elements: hydrogen. helium, and small amounts of lithium. But as we see, there are many other elements present now, some being essential for life like oxygen and carbon. They had to be forged by reactions at the stars. It is exactly what the Webb will help us to understand and study, the Origins.
The Making and Design
Being a very large and complex observatory, the scientists were faced with many challenges, one Of them being the large mirror and the other being the need to keep it cold for its functioning. The size of the mirror and the sunshield (used for temperature control) presented another challenge: the telescope must be small enough to fit in the launch vehicle. The scientists and engineers came up with an idea to tackle this situation; they made the mirror into 18 segments replacing the huge one, and turned the enormous observatory into a piece of origami. It is designed in such a way that at first. it is neatly folded for launch, and then it goes through a series Of intricate steps to unfurl on its way to the observation post millions of miles away. Making of the James Webb started in 2004. Then over the years it was constructed and it was during the year 2019 the final assembly and testing were done. Finally, the James Webb space telescope was launched on 25th December 2021 at 7:20 a.m. EST.
Some Of the finds Of the Webb
Carina Nebula
This landscape of beautiful “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.
Stephan’s Quintet
A visual grouping Of five galaxies.
The Southern Ring Nebula
James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first clear evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system. The mysteries of our universe are uncountable and baffling ones at that. The Webb, however, is a tiny peephole towards the truth; and honestly, is quite enough. All of this reminds us Of the words of Neil Armstrong who said, “One small step for a man; a giant leap for mankind.”
