The James Webb Space Telescope
posted 4/5/23 by Leo Rosin
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a powerful and new telescope that can record images of the universe. The first telescopes allowed us to view moons, planets and sunspots. Later, more powerful telescopes like the Hubble space telescope allowed us to photograph star nurseries and prove that galaxies collide. The James Webb Telescope is the newest telescope meant to make keen observations of our universe and photograph new things. The JWST was built by a collaboration between Nasa, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Its goal is to grant glimpses of sights that have been hypothesized but never seen, from the births of new galaxies to the very first stars.
The JWST looks similar to a raft with a mast and sail. The bottom part or the raft operates as a sunshield made of membrane like layers which are as thin as a human hairs. The layers are made of Kapton which is a high performance plastic coated with a reflective metal which protects the instruments. The JWST also has a mirror, in total 18 separate hexagonal beryllium sections and together they act as one mirror. The mirror in total is 21.4 feet and it is that big in order to measure the light from distant galaxies. The mirror reflects all of the light into a telescope which detects infrared light, which can pass through dust and gas, rather than visible light, which cannot. This allows the telescope to detect infrared light from the earliest stars or galaxies born, letting us look into the past and possibly discover many new things.
The main goal of the telescope is to discover all phases of cosmic history including the Big Bang. Light travels at a specific speed and because of the expanding universe some of the light from the Big Bang is only reaching us now. This allows us to potentially map the assembly of galaxies, the birth of stars, protoplanetary systems, planetary systems and the origins of life.
The James Webb Space Telescope is an amazing feat of engineering that will hopefully allow humanity to uncover the story of the universe.