It’s been a very bumpy ride, but it seems the James Webb Space Telescope is finally on track for launch later this year. That’s because this week, the European Space Agency (ESA) and its partner, Arianespace, announced all is go for launch.
Bult using the knowledge gained with the tremendously successful Hubble telescope, Webb (also known as JWST), will pack capabilities that will allow it to peer further into the past of the Universe, looking for secrets we probably don’t even know exist.
Packing a 6.5-meter (21.3-ft) diameter mirror (larger than Hubble), it will be able to look into the stars in the infrared part of the spectrum from a more distant orbit. These attributes should allow it to see the light coming from the stars formed immediately after the Big Bang and even look for signs of life on alien planets.
Webb will also be tasked with looking at six of the most distant and luminous quasars we know of. Quasars are among the brightest objects in the Universe, in fact, active supermassive black holes with millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun.
Looking at these six will allow scientists here on Earth to better understand the properties of the early Universe—as most of you already know by now, because of the vastness of space and the capped speed of light, looking at distant celestial objects actually means looking into the past.
Back to the event that brought us here, ESA, which will host the Webb launch at its spaceport in French Guiana, and Arianespace, whose Ariane 5 rocket will take it to its place in orbit, have cleared the telescope for launch.
The review of the two organizations looked at how the telescope would cope with the mechanical forces, vibrations, temperature changes, and electromagnetic radiation that come with the launch and found all is within parameters.
Webb is now scheduled for launch on October 31.
Packing a 6.5-meter (21.3-ft) diameter mirror (larger than Hubble), it will be able to look into the stars in the infrared part of the spectrum from a more distant orbit. These attributes should allow it to see the light coming from the stars formed immediately after the Big Bang and even look for signs of life on alien planets.
Webb will also be tasked with looking at six of the most distant and luminous quasars we know of. Quasars are among the brightest objects in the Universe, in fact, active supermassive black holes with millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun.
Looking at these six will allow scientists here on Earth to better understand the properties of the early Universe—as most of you already know by now, because of the vastness of space and the capped speed of light, looking at distant celestial objects actually means looking into the past.
Back to the event that brought us here, ESA, which will host the Webb launch at its spaceport in French Guiana, and Arianespace, whose Ariane 5 rocket will take it to its place in orbit, have cleared the telescope for launch.
The review of the two organizations looked at how the telescope would cope with the mechanical forces, vibrations, temperature changes, and electromagnetic radiation that come with the launch and found all is within parameters.
Webb is now scheduled for launch on October 31.