NASA James Webb Space Telescope

NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope was a huge science project plagued with several problems, and it seemed destined to fail badly, but despite such odds, it succeeded. Its sensors can potentially explore targets near and far, from a galactic arm of our own Milky Way, it reaches to never-before-seen galaxies. Interestingly, its spectrograph has also suspected the chemistry of another planet’s atmosphere from more than 1,000 light-years away, discovering a gas giant called WASP-96b over- clouded with gaseous water. 

In this article, we will focus on the James Webb Telescope, the successor of the Hubble telescope, its developments, discoveries, costing, NASA’s failures, and many more. So, let’s get started! 

What is the James Webb Space Telescope?

The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the famous Hubble telescope, launched on Dec. 25, 2021, and was aimed for a mission to study the earliest stars and dig into the universe's past more than ever before. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the world's biggest and newest telescope. Indeed it is the most powerful space telescope ever launched, which has successfully entered its final destination, the Lagrange point 2 (L2), as it is orbiting the sun 1.5 million km (1 million miles) away from the Earth (That is, L2). Lagrange points are gravitational balance points to keep the telescope balanced in orbit.

But the question here is why the Webb Telescope was sent to orbit at such a faraway destination, L2. It was sent as it was considered n ideal location for an infrared observatory. In simple words, for the Webb Telescope to not get warmed up by the sun, it was sent to L2 to keep away from the sun. At Sun-Earth L2, the Sun and Earth (and Moon, too) are always on one side of space, allowing Webb to keep its telescope optics and instruments perpetually shaded and work properly in a cold atmosphere & not heat up. Another reason is also that because L2 is a location of gravitational equilibrium, it is easy for Webb to maintain an orbit there.

Something interesting for You!

Did you know? Our Milky Way has two major arms: the Perseus Arm and the Scutum-Centaurus Arm. Galaxies like the Milky Way have “spiral arms; the spiral arm in which we live is Orion- Cygnus arm. The Orion- Cygnus Arm is between the Carina–Sagittarius Arm (toward the Galactic center) and the Perseus Arm (toward the outside Universe). 

What will the James Webb Space Telescope do?

Webb is majorly aimed at studying every phase in the history of our universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the big bang to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets such as Earth to the evolution of our solar system. It will be an add-on or build on the Hubble Space Telescope's discoveries.

When was the James Webb Telescope launched?

It all started on December 28th, 2021, three days after launch; the James Webb Space Telescope was 350,000 miles from Earth, more than a hundred thousand miles farther than the average distance to the Moon, at a very high speed of 2,000 miles per hour, it was supposed to cover a long way, before it could reach its home, an orbit around the sun called L2.

First images by James Webb Space Telescope

• The telescope’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data were released during a televised broadcast on July 2022. As part of the first image, the landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, the image revealed for the first time that was previously invisible areas of star birth.

• Called the Cosmic Cliffs, Webb’s seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. After this, It is amazing now that it has reached its final destination (L2), from where it has captured a few unique pictures of Jupiter, such as auroras and tiny moons, which were released by scientists.

• The shots, clicked by the James Webb Space Telescope in mid-2022, captured a swirling polar haze, a huge red spot on Jupiter, a giant storm, the northern and southern lights of Jupiter, and many more unprecedented views of the solar system's largest planet.

• Elaborating the same, it is fascinating to know that a wide-field picture clicked by the telescope portrayed a few dramatic views of Jupiter, such as some faint rings surrounding the planet, colorful auroras, two tiny moons (Amalthea and Adrastea), and glittering background of galaxies.

It was said that "We hadn't expected it to be this good, to be honest," said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater of the University of California, Berkeley.

What was the problem with the Hubble Space Telescope?

• It's a mirror flaw (a silly mistake), but remember that it is not a failure; it’s still in use. Hubble's main mirror was polished before installation. 

• The edges were polished very slightly too flat, leaving the telescope unable to focus perfectly. Its mirrors were made to focus the incoming light from the celestial objects, but the images were blurred due to a flaw in its primary mirror.

• The mirror (optics) failed the focusing test. This failure led to the allegations of NASA’s quality control failings. Hubble’s spectrographs were less severely affected because they needed less focused light, mainly from the flawed mirror.

• Rectification of the mirror was needed, but its far distance ground-based observatory would not have sufficed. Therefore astronauts were sent for this purpose, and the astronauts charged with fixing Hubble were told by NASA Administrator Dan Goldin that their flight was critical; if they failed, so too would the political will and reputation of NASA. 

How much did the James Webb Space Telescope cost?

 The James Webb Space Telescope costs around $9.7 billion over 24 years. Of that amount, $8.8 billion was spent on spacecraft development between 2003 and 2021; $861 million is planned to support five years of operations. If we look at the inflation to the 2020 dollars, the lifetime cost to NASA will be approximately $10.8 billion. So, this is history’s one of the most expensive platforms.

How much time will the images take to reach the earth?

For starters, Webb has been installed at a location called the second Lagrange point, L2. According to NASA, it takes about five seconds for data to reach from the telescope to the Earth, which is then directed to the mission centers. Hence, the Webb telescope is an international collaboration between the US space agency Nasa, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, involving more than 10,000 people.

More developments are on the way!