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A New Eye In the Sky
A New Eye In the Sky
By: Avantika K.
By: Avantika K.
In this article you will find information about the most powerful telescope ever built, one that will amaze you and your friends. It will help scientists explore space and see what our universe was like 200 million years after the Big Bang. It will help in finding if there is life on other planets, and I hope it will finally answer the question if aliens exist or not!
The James Webb Telescope was built to see what our universe was like, just after the Big Bang. Even though we have many telescopes, Webb is still needed because the more telescopes we have, the more we can explore space. Scientists took 30 years to design and build the Webb telescope. It can capture images of objects from millions of miles away in space. Also, it can see in space through infrared light. It's plated in gold to reflect the infrared and can see through dust to find any new stars or planets in the galaxies.
The James Webb Telescope is so big that it had to be folded like an origami to fit in the nose of the Ariane 5 rocket and unfold after it is in orbit. The heart of Webb is its giant mirror. It’s made of 18 small mirrors that fit like a puzzle and are arranged in a honeycomb pattern. With an eye this big, Webb will be able to look much farther into space than the Hubble Space Telescope can. Also, its lifetime will be about 10 years. It would take many days for it to be fully operational after its launch.
Webb was launched on Dec 25th, 2021 to replace the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb was launched at Europe's Spaceport located near
Kourou, French Guiana. The Ariane 5 Rocket was chosen for the mission because it is the most reliable. Webb will orbit about 930,000 miles away from earth. This orbit is about four times the distance from the earth to the moon. It will stay far away from the earth and moon to avoid heat radiation and not get damaged. Although it does not actually go around earth, it still goes around the sun at about the same speed as it would around the earth.
The cameras on the Webb telescope are very sensitive and they need to be protected from the heat of the sun. A very large solar shield, the size of a tennis court protects the instruments and the mirrors of the Webb. The scientists at NASA had to go through a very complex set of routines to unfold and bring up the solar shield. When the mirrors are in their final position, the Webb telescope will be as tall as a three story building. I’m eagerly awaiting the first images from the newest and most powerful ‘Eye in the Sky’.
I hope after reading this article you will share this article with your others so they can be just amazed as you were reading this article. Be sure to be on the lookout for more about The James Webb Telescope and what it will find!
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