James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope that focuses on infrared astronomy. The most powerful telescope ever sent into space, its substantially improved infrared resolution and sensitivity will allow it to see things that the Hubble Space Telescope can’t see because they’re too ancient, far, or faint. This is expected to open up a wide range of astronomical and cosmological questions, such as views of the first stars and the origin of galaxies, as well as detailed atmospheric description of potentially habitable exoplanets. JWST was launched in December 2021 from Kourou, French Guiana, on an ESA Ariane 5 rocket, and is still being tested and aligned as of May 2022.JWST will follow Hubble as NASA’s premier astrophysics mission once it is operational, which is scheduled around the end of June 2022.

Features of James Webb space

The mass of the James Webb Space Telescope is roughly half that of the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST’s primary mirror is made up of 18 independent hexagonal mirrors with a diameter of 6.5 metres (21 feet). The polished area of the mirror is 26.3 m2 (283 sq ft), with the secondary support struts obscuring 0.9 m2 (9.7 sq ft), for a total collecting area of 25.4 m2 (273 sq ft). The collecting area of Hubble’s 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) diameter mirror, which has a collecting area of 4.0 m2, is more than six times greater (43 sq ft). A gold coating provides infrared reflectivity and endurance to the mirror.JWST is primarily built for near-infrared astronomy, although depending on the instrument, it can also view orange and red visible light, as well as the mid-infrared spectrum. It can detect things 100 times fainter than Hubble, as well as objects from much earlier in the universe’s history, as far back as redshift z20 (about 180 million years cosmic time after the Big Bang). For context, the first stars are assumed to have formed between z30 and z20 (100-180 million years cosmic time), and the first galaxies about z15 (about 270 million years cosmic time). Hubble can only look back to the very early stages of reionization, around z11.1 (galaxy GN-z11, 400 million years of cosmic time).

The Purpose Of The James Webb space

The four main goals of the James Webb Space Telescope are as follows:

• To look for light from the universe’s initial stars and galaxies that emerged after the Big Bang

• To investigate the genesis and evolution of galaxies

• To comprehend the genesis of stars and planets

• TO research planetary systems and life’s beginnings

Observation in near-infrared light, rather than light in the visible half of the spectrum, is more effective in achieving these goals. As a result, unlike the Hubble Telescope, JWST’s equipment will not measure visible or ultraviolet light, but will have a significantly better capacity for infrared astronomy.JWST will be sensitive to wavelengths ranging from 0.6 to 28 m (equivalent to orange light and deep infrared radiation at 100 K or 173 °C, respectively).JWST could be used to study the diminishing light of KIC 8462852, a star found in 2015 that has several unusual light-curve qualities.It will also be able to detect the presence of methane in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, allowing astronomers to assess whether the methane represents a biosignature.

Ground operations and support

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), located on Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood Campus in Baltimore, Maryland, was chosen as the Science and Activities Center (S&OC) for JWST, with an initial budget of US$162.2 million to support operations for the first year after launch. STScI will be in charge of the telescope’s scientific operation and data distribution to the astronomical community in this capacity. JWST data will be relayed to the earth via the NASA Deep Space Network, processed and calibrated at STScI, and then made available to astronomers all over the world via the internet. Anyone, anywhere in the world, will be able to submit requests for observations, similar to how Hubble works.

Each year, multiple astronomical committees will peer examine the ideas and pick the projects to observe the following year. The authors of the selected proposals will normally have one year of exclusive access to the new observations, after which the data will be made publicly available for download from the STScI web repository.For the duration of the mission, the satellite’s bandwidth and digital throughput are designed to operate at 458 gigabits of data each day (equal to a sustained rate of 5.42 megabits per second (Mbps)).

On the telescope, single-board computers handle the majority of the data processing.

The custom-built SIDECAR ASIC performs the conversion of analogue science data to digital form (System for Image Digitization, Enhancement, Control And Retrieval Application Specific Integrated Circuit). The SIDECAR ASIC, according to NASA, will compress all of the capabilities of a 9.1 kg (20 lb) instrument box into a 3 cm (1.2 in) container and use only 11 milliwatts of electricity. The low power utilisation of this IC will be critical for maintaining the low temperature required for good JWST operation, as this conversion must be done near to the detectors, on the cool side of the telescope.

Conclusion

Scientists and engineers who worked on the project expressed their excitement and apprehension about the roughly $10 billion instrument’s launch, saying it would be “an thrilling moment” and that they would be “terrified the entire time.” The launch (named Ariane flight VA256) took place at 12:20 UTC on December 25, 2021, on an Ariane 5 rocket that took off from French Guiana’s Guiana Space Centre. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson hailed the successful launch as “a terrific day for planet Earth.” The telescope was confirmed to be receiving power, allowing it to begin a two-week deployment phase of its components and journey to its intended destination.