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 evening sky and our place within the cosmos. Wish to study extra? Be part of two of our scientists as they speak about what the James Webb Telescope is, why it’s being constructed and what it should assist us study 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 fantastically darkish, rural skies. After ending a PhD in Physics, she got here to NASA Goddard to check galaxies utilizing knowledge from our Hubble Area Telescope. Along with analysis, Amber’s function with the Webb mission’s science staff includes working with Communications and Outreach actions. She is wanting ahead to utilizing knowledge from Webb in her analysis on galaxy formation and evolution.
We additionally talked with Dr. John Mather, the Senior Challenge Scientist for Webb, who leads our science staff. He received a Nobel Prize in 2006 for confirming the Large Bang concept 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 skilled on cosmology, and infrared astronomy and instrumentation.Â
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 few of the largest questions we’ve got in astronomy immediately. And these are questions that transcend simply being science questions; they’re questions that basically get to the center 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 massive one – are we alone?
To reply the largest questions in astronomy immediately we actually want a really large 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 large engineering challenges.
Dr. John Mather: One of many fantastic challenges about astronomy is that we’ve got to think about one thing so we will go search for it. However nature has a means of being much more artistic than we’re, so we’ve got all the time been shocked 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 occurring for hundreds of years. That is the following step in that nice collection, of larger and higher and extra highly effective telescopes that absolutely will shock us in a roundabout way that I can’t inform you.
It has by no means been achieved 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 attain the scientific discoveries that we needed to make. We needed to invent a brand new strategy to make the mirrors, a strategy to focus it out in outer area, a number of new sorts of infrared detectors, and we needed to invent the massive unfolding umbrella we name the sunshield.
Amber: One among 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 obtained all the things began.
John: The primary stars and galaxies are actually the massive 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. We have now a reasonably 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 need to watch how galaxies develop and alter over time. We have now questions like how galaxies merge, how black holes type and the way fuel inflows and outflows have an effect on galaxy evolution. However we’re actually lacking a key piece of the puzzle, which is how galaxies obtained their begin.
John: Astronomy is without doubt one of the most observationally based mostly 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. Ultimately we discovered that our personal galaxy is considered one of a whole bunch 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 will need to have an infinite age, with out a place to begin. Effectively, he was incorrect! Our instinct has simply been incorrect virtually on a regular basis. We’re fairly assured that we don’t know what we’re going to seek out.
Amber: As an astronomer probably the most thrilling issues about engaged on a telescope like that is the prospect of what it should inform us that we haven’t even considered but. We have now 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’ve got to study. 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 need to find out about what our Universe is like.Â
Webb would be the world’s premier area science observatory. It should clear up 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 mission we’re main with our companions, ESA (European Area Company) and the Canadian Area Company.
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