The James Webb telescope, since its launch last summer to explore the beginnings of the universe and the atmospheres of distant planets, has printed the year 2022 with exceptional images that give hope for great discoveries in the coming years.
Since it was positioned one and a half million kilometers from Earth, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which is also still in service, has astounded astronomers with images of unprecedented precision, according to “French”.
Furthermore, the accuracy of its casting allows it to continue to function for a period of no less than 20 years, after the guaranteed life expectancy was ten years.
“The James Webb Telescope is performing better than expected in every respect,” said Massimo Steavelli, mission chief at the Space Telescope Science Institute which oversees the observatory’s work.
“The tools are more effective and the vision method is more accurate and stable,” he added.
And the general public reaps the benefits of this innovation, thanks to the colors that print telescope images usually invisible to the naked eye.
And unlike the “Hubble” telescope, which monitors the universe primarily within the range of the visible spectrum “that the human eye can monitor,” the James Webb telescope is able to “see” in the infrared, which is the radiation naturally emitted by all objects, from celestial bodies to flowers. .
At this longitudinal wave, the James Webb telescope can detect the faintest flashes in deep space, “hence ancient”, penetrate the dust barrier that obscures the stars in a constellation or analyze the atmospheres of exoplanets thanks to its spectrometers. Lisa Kaltenegger, professor of astronomy at Cornell University, USA, said: ‘The instrument’s first experiments on small rocky planets in the habitable zone, which are possibly Earth-like, were astonishing.’
The James Webb telescope was sent aboard an Ariane 5 rocket in late 2021, a long journey NASA launched more than thirty years ago.
After several setbacks, the launch of the 6.2-ton telescope was successful. Its development cost ten billion dollars and required the concerted efforts of ten thousand people, despite its unprecedented complexity.
