James Webb a Christmas Gift from NASA?

James Webb a Christmas Gift from NASA?

On 25^th December 7:20 am EST (5:50 pm IST) world’s most powerful space telescope will be launched from French Guiana.

James Webb Telescope (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The $10bn James Webb Space Telescope, the successor of Hubble, will be launched on 25^th December, and this will be good news for astronomers. This telescope has been named after former NASA chief James Webb, who oversaw the space agency from 1961 to 1968. This project has taken about 3 decades to design, and its successful launch would be one of the biggest achievements of the 21^st century.

Comparing James Webb with Hubble

Source: BBC

Comparing James Webb Space Telescope with the Hubble Space Telescope would be like comparing an athlete from Olympics with a national level kid. James Webb Space Telescope is nearly 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope.  JWST will, of course, look back more in time as compared to Hubble because it has a more powerful lens, bigger mirror to capture light and a better operating system. And of course, JWST will not be the most powerful telescope as long as Hubble was because of the accelerating development in technology. It will look deeper into the cosmos and even those parts which Hubble could not see and capture images of the first stars and galaxies.

"One of my favourite things about astronomy in general is that it really gets right down to our big questions: Where do we come from? How did we get here? Are we alone? These questions are more than just arcane science questions; they're questions that get to the heart of what it means to be human," said NASA deputy project scientist Dr Amber Straughn.

Working of James Webb

Source: BBC

James Webb Space Telescope has the biggest mirror ever sent into space and is made of 18 small hexagonal mirrors, each coated with a layer of gold. Underneath the mirror there are 5 sunshields each as big as a tennis court and the thickness is that of a human hair. This telescope is so big that to launch it, it has been folded. But before it starts capturing images of galaxies, it has to get unfolded in space and the release mechanisms must be done flawlessly, and even a small mistake can disrupt its proper functioning and it cannot be fixed later because of its large distance from the Earth.
The expectations are high, and so is the anxiety.