Our James Webb Area Telescope is an epic mission that may give us a window into the early universe, permitting us to see the time interval throughout which the primary stars and galaxies shaped. Webb won’t solely change what we all know, but additionally how we take into consideration the night time sky and our place within the cosmos. Need to be taught extra? Be a part of two of our scientists as they speak about what the James Webb Telescope is, why it’s being constructed and what it would assist us be taught concerning the universe…
First, meet Dr. Amber Straughn. She grew up in a small farming city in Arkansas, the place her fascination with astronomy started below superbly darkish, rural skies. After ending a PhD in Physics, she got here to NASA Goddard to review galaxies utilizing knowledge from our Hubble Area Telescope. Along with analysis, Amber’s position with the Webb challenge’s science staff includes working with Communications and Outreach actions. She is trying ahead to utilizing knowledge from Webb in her analysis on galaxy formation and evolution.
We additionally talked with Dr. John Mather, the Senior Undertaking Scientist for Webb, who leads our science staff. He gained a Nobel Prize in 2006 for confirming the Large Bang principle with excessive precision by way of a mission referred to as the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission. John was the Principal Investigator (PI) of the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) instrument on COBE. He’s an professional on cosmology, and infrared astronomy and instrumentation.
Now, let’s get to the science of Webb!
Dr. Amber Straughn: The James Webb Area Telescope at its core is designed to reply a number of the greatest questions we now have in astronomy at the moment. And these are questions that transcend simply being science questions; they’re questions that actually get to the guts of who we’re as human beings; questions like the place can we come from? How did we get right here? And, after all, the large one – are we alone?
To reply the largest questions in astronomy at the moment we actually want a really huge telescope. And the James Webb Area Telescope is the largest telescope we’ve ever tried to ship into area. It units us up with some actually huge engineering challenges.
Dr. John Mather: One of many great challenges about astronomy is that we now have to think about one thing so we are able to go search for it. However nature has a approach of being much more inventive than we’re, so we now have all the time been stunned by what we see within the sky. That’s why constructing a telescope has all the time been attention-grabbing. Each time we construct a greater one, we see one thing we by no means imagined was on the market. That’s been happening for hundreds of years. That is the subsequent step in that nice sequence, of larger and higher and extra highly effective telescopes that certainly will shock us indirectly that I can’t let you know.
It has by no means been finished earlier than, constructing an enormous telescope that may unfold in area. We knew we would have liked one thing that was greater than the rocket to realize the scientific discoveries that we needed to make. We needed to invent a brand new option to make the mirrors, a option to focus it out in outer area, a number of new sorts of infrared detectors, and we needed to invent the large unfolding umbrella we name the sunshield.
Amber: One in every of Webb’s objectives is to detect the very first stars and galaxies that have been born within the very early universe. This is part of the universe that we haven’t seen in any respect but. We don’t know what’s there, so the telescope in a way goes to open up this brand-new a part of the universe, the a part of the universe that received the whole lot began.
John: The primary stars and galaxies are actually the large thriller for us. We don’t understand how that occurred. We don’t know when it occurred. We don’t know what these stars have been like. Now we have a fairly good concept that they have been very a lot bigger than the solar and that they might burn out in an amazing burst of glory in just some million years.
Amber: We additionally wish to watch how galaxies develop and alter over time. Now we have questions like how galaxies merge, how black holes type and the way gasoline inflows and outflows have an effect on galaxy evolution. However we’re actually lacking a key piece of the puzzle, which is how galaxies received their begin.
John: Astronomy is without doubt one of the most observationally primarily based sciences we’ve ever had. All the things we all know concerning the sky has been a shock. The ancients knew concerning the stars, however they didn’t know they have been far-off. They didn’t know they have been just like the Solar. Finally we discovered that our personal galaxy is one among lots of of billions of galaxies and that the Universe is definitely very outdated, however not infinitely outdated. In order that was an enormous shock too. Einstein thought, after all the Universe should have an infinite age, with out a place to begin. Nicely, he was flawed! Our instinct has simply been flawed virtually on a regular basis. We’re fairly assured that we don’t know what we’re going to search out.
Amber: As an astronomer probably the most thrilling issues about engaged on a telescope like that is the prospect of what it would inform us that we haven’t even considered but. Now we have all these actually detailed science questions that we’ll ask, that we all know to ask, and that we’ll reply. And in a way that’s what science is all about… in answering the questions we give you extra questions. There’s this virtually infinite provide of questions, of issues that we now have to be taught. In order that’s why we construct telescopes to get to this basic a part of who we’re as human beings. We’re explorers, and we wish to study what our Universe is like.
Webb would be the world’s premier area science observatory. It’ll resolve mysteries in our photo voltaic system, look past to distant worlds round different stars and probe the mysterious buildings and origins of our universe – together with our place in it. Webb is a world challenge we’re main with our companions, ESA (European Area Company) and the Canadian Area Company.
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