James Weeb Telescope. “We will see things that no one has thought about before”

The James Webb Telescope is scheduled to launch into space today. “The device can answer the most pressing questions about the universe, and discover things no one has even thought of,” said Scott Friedman, chief scientist responsible for commissioning the Hubble successor telescope. According to astrophysicist Michael Rutkowski, the telescope will provide scientists with material for decades of research.

December 25 is the planned launch date of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mission, which has been in development for more than a quarter of a century, the successor of the Hubble telescope, which is to open up to scientists hitherto unknown recesses of the universe. The $ 10 billion project has faced great obstacles and many years of delays, but it is something that a whole generation of scientists has been waiting for.

Work on it lasted virtually my whole life. The entire astronomical community expects this with tension. Everyone is nervous, they speculate whether – as in the children’s stories – the Grinch will steal the telescope with the holidays? Is this telescope cursed? Everyone I speak to is very excited about this – says Dr. Michael Rutkowski, an astrophysicist at the State University of Minnesota. The scientist and his team will be among the first to benefit from observing the telescope.

Where does the excitement of scientists come from? As Scott Friedman, the chief scientist of the Space Telescope Science Institute responsible for the launch of the telescope, explains, it will allow for a much further and more detailed study of the universe than the Hubble telescope, which has been operating for over 30 years. This is due to, among others a 6.5 meter main mirror composed of gold plated beryllium hexagonal panels and infrared observation capability.

Hubble showed us new things about our universe, allowed us to measure them much more accurately, but also discovered things that no one expected, such as measuring the atmosphere of other planets orbiting distant stars, properties of dark energy that we had no idea about. As for JWST, we fully expect that thanks to it we will see things that no one has even thought about before Friedman says.

He adds that thanks to infrared observations, the Webb telescope will be able to look much further into the origins of the universe and some of the first stars and galaxies, at a time when they were still forming, around 200 million years after the Big Bang. This will allow us to better understand the evolution of the universe, as well as, inter alia, the process of star formation.

But that’s just one of the things that excites scientists. Another is the possibility of a more detailed study of the atmospheres of exoplanets, i.e. planets outside the solar system – primarily in terms of the potential for life there.

We will never see strangers directly, but we will be able to say with certainty, for example, that a given planet has extremely favorable conditions for life. The Webb telescope offers great opportunities for such discoveries here – says Rutkowski.

For example, when dealing with a rocky planet that has oxygen and ozone in its atmosphere, we will be able to see if the levels of these gases are changing. Ozone breaks down quickly near hot stars, so if levels are renewing, where is it coming from? Potentially from life in the oceans, from plankton or other creatures. This is an example of what we will be able to do – describes.

The telescope will also allow, among others to better understand some of the most puzzling concepts in science, incl. the nature of the so-called dark matter – the hypothetical, “invisible” matter that makes up most of the mass in the universe, as well as dark energy that scientists believe is responsible for the accelerating rate of expansion of the universe. As Rutkowski notes, it will also be possible, inter alia, deducing the “geometric shape of the universe”.

According to Friedman, the demand among scientists to use the telescope to conduct their own observations is huge, and four times the time available for research. This is 5 years – this is how the operation of the telescope is guaranteed, incl. due to the limited fuel supply. It is possible that it will be able to function longer; The Hubble telescope was originally intended to serve only 15 years, and has been in operation for twice as long. But unlike in near-orbit Hubble, Webb will be in the so-called L2 libration point, more than 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, which excludes current repairs.

Work on the schedule of this research is currently underway. We don’t want to waste a second – emphasizes Friedman.

Both Friedman and Rutkowski will be among the first to benefit from the observations made by the new telescope – this is due to the fact that about half of the time in the first year of research is reserved for the teams of scientists who contributed to the creation of the telescope and its instruments. Friedman intends to spend his time exploring one of the galaxies – called ESO-137 – that is being “pulled” into a cluster of other galaxies, which in the process “sucked” gas out of it. Rutkowski’s team wants to look at the characteristics of stardust in early galaxies and its influence on the phenomenon of atomic ionization throughout the universe.

Using the data from this telescope will be like drinking from a hydrant. We will be overwhelmed and overwhelmed with data and images. I already know that I will probably be using Webb’s insights for the rest of my career – says Rutkowski.

However, there is a big question mark over all these plans: will the telescope be properly placed in place, or will it be possible to unfold the mirror and all its mechanisms. According to NASA, the mission is the most technically complex operation in history, with over 300 components, the failure of which could undermine the success of the entire mission.

According to Friedman, the success of the mission will primarily be determined by the first two weeks, during which the telescope – folded during launch to fit into the Ariane 5 rocket – will disassemble all its components. But even with full success, it will take as long as 6 months for the telescope to be fully operational.

I’ve been working on this telescope for 17 years and have put in literally years of work to get this whole commissioning plan ready right down to the last detail. We know that not everything will go as it is supposed to go, we do not know what problems we will find. But we have a good plan, each component has gone through years of testing, so we believe it will be a success Friedman says.

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