Engineer’s launched James Webb Space Telescope

• IAS NEXT, Lucknow
• 22, Oct 2021

Engineers have unboxed the James Webb Space Telescope in French Guiana and will now prepare it for launch.

• JWST is one of the grand scientific projects of the 21st Century and will ride to orbit on 18 December.

About JSWT:

JWST is a joint venture between the US (Nasa), European (Esa) and Canadian space agencies (CSA).

• It is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity.
• Webb was formerly known as the “Next Generation Space Telescope” (NGST) and it was renamed in 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb.
• It will be a large infrared telescope with an approximately 6.5 meter primary mirror.

Objectives and functions of the telescope:

1. It will look deeper into the cosmos – and thus further back in time – than is possible with Hubble.
2. It will do this with a much bigger mirror (6.5m in diameter versus 2.4m) and instruments that are tuned to the infrared.
3. Scientists hope this set-up can detect the light from the very first population of stars in the Universe to switch on more than 13.5 billion years ago.

Orbit:

• The Hubble Space Telescope orbits around the Earth at an altitude of ~570 km above it.
• Webb will not actually orbit the Earth, instead it will sit at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point,5 million km away.
• At the L2 point Webb’s solar shield will block the light from the Sun, Earth, and Moon which will help Webb stay cool, which is very important for an infrared telescope.