The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built.
Image Credit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (modified)
- The telescope is capable of capturing images of some of the first galaxies ever formed.
- It will allow us to look at what our universe was like about 200 million years after the Big Bang.
- It will also observe objects in our solar system from Mars outward.
- It will look inside dust clouds to see where new stars and planets are forming.
- It will examine the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars.
SIZE:
Next question in your mind might be how big the Webb Telescope is?
The James Webb telescope is as tall as a 3-story building and as long as a tennis court!
Image Credit: NASA
It has to fold origami-style to fit inside the rocket to launch.
Image Credit: NASA
FEATURES:
The most important feature is that It can see through dust clouds.
The James Webb Space Telescope can see the universe in light that is invisible to human eyes.
This light is called infrared radiation, and we can feel it as heat.
Same technology is used by firefighters to see and rescue people through the smoke in a fire.
The James Webb Space Telescope uses its infrared cameras to see through dust in our universe.
Stars and planets form inside those dust clouds, so peeking inside could lead to exciting new discoveries!
The expansion of the universe has made the light of far galaxies shift from visible to infrared!
Due to its infrared vision, The James Webb Telescope will see objects that are so far away like the first galaxies.
It is equipped with a giant Sun-shield to protect the telescope’s camera.
Sunshield
Image Credit: NASA
The Webb telescope’s cameras are sensitive to heat from the Sun.
The Webb has a sunshield to protect its instruments and mirrors.
The telescope’s sunshield is about the size of a tennis court.
The temperature difference between the sun-facing and shaded sides of the telescope is more than 600 degrees Fahrenheit!
It uses giant, gold-coated mirrors to see the universe.
Gold platted Mirrors
Image Credit: NASA
Space telescopes “see” by using mirrors to collect and focus light from distant stars.
The bigger the mirror, the more details the telescope can see.
It’s very difficult to launch a giant, heavy mirror into space. So, engineers gave the Webb telescope 18 smaller mirrors that fit together like a puzzle.
The mirrors fold up inside the rocket, then unfold to form one large mirror in orbit.
The question must come to your mind: Why are the mirrors gold?
The answer is that a thin layer of gold helps the mirrors reflect infrared light! And we know why we want the James Webb telescope to see Infrared lights, to see through dust as well as to see oldest galaxies in the universe.
It will be hunting for Aliens
The James Webb telescope will find signs of life on other planets.
Our solar system isn’t the only home for planets! There are thousands of exoplanets already discouraged by scientists & researchers.
Exoplanets are the planets that orbit the star other than the sun.
The James Webb Space Telescope will help to study the atmospheres of exoplanets.
It will give a clear idea about the possibility of life like earth on some exoplanets.
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