The famous James Webb telescope is known as the most powerful space telescope to date. Its purpose was to get more information regarding the history of the universe from the Big Bang theory. It accomplished this feat and way more. This new technological advancement provided the most accurate images of different star formations dating back more than 13 billion years which is the closest scientists have ever gotten to the creation of time. To understand the telescope though, we have to turn time back 20 years to 2004 when this telescope started being built.
After the great success of the Hubble telescope, scientists started to wonder what to do next. The idea of making a better telescope was initially proposed in the mid-1990s, however, the actual building of the James Webb telescope started in 2004. Webb was an international project made up of thousands of engineers some of the main companies that contributed were NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency.
The main goal of the Webb telescope was to provide a deeper understanding of the creation of the universe and how the earliest stars and galaxies were formed. To do this they had to add a 13-foot mirror which collects infrared light traveling through space. Webb’s mirrors and components are used to capture detailed images from foreign objects that can be dated back 13.5 billion light years away. This telescope has provided the most accurate images of space to date and on the images you can see the visible red, near-infrared, and mid-infrared light from galaxies and stars.
In relation to Webb’s orbit, it is about 1 million miles from Earth and orbits the sun at a point called the second Lagrange point. This point was chosen because it is the exact distance where the sunshield has effective protection. Without it, the telescope would not be able to deflect light and heat so it would result in it melting. Another reason for being positioned at L2 is that it will maintain the same position in accordance with the sun and Earth, which makes it simpler to figure out the shielding. The gravitational forces and orbital motion do the telescope balance each other out so the Webb appears to be “hovering”.
In the coming years, the James Webb telescope is expected to start Cycle 3 and investigate exoplanets and the moons that surround them, massive black holes, and more distant galaxies that existed during the dawn of time. One exoplanet in particular, Kepler-167e, has a possibility of having numerous exomoons and is one of the most important areas that will be focused on in Cycle 3. Exomoon exploration has been a tough subject for scientists mainly due to the reason that it is a very hard thing to do. One of the factors that make finding these moons difficult is that they block less light than exoplanets so they aren’t very visible. This means that to be able to be seen, they would have to be in the exact position at the right time.
Before the Webb telescope, this seemed utterly impossible but recent photos have shown a clear detection of an exomoon. David Kipping, an assistant professor at Columbia University, and his team have been focused on this particular exoplanet for the time being and were the first people to see the detection of the exomoon. “This is hopefully just the beginning of the exomoon revolution,” Kipping said in a recent interview. His team is hopeful to find new developments in the finding of exomoons and the JWST is the main reason why they are allowed to do this.
Although it has a long way to go, the James Webb telescope is one of the main contributors to recent space discoveries and it has helped in unimaginable ways. It’s expected to last 20 years and will go through several different cycles, or missions, to find different pieces of specific information about Space that haven’t been answered yet. In conclusion, the Webb telescope has given scientists the ability to see galaxies from over 13 billion years ago and learn more about the formation of stars and planets.