How many times have you looked at the night sky and wondered, "What's out there?" well, that curiosity has led the humanity from shaping constellations to launching telescopes into space to answer the biggest questions of the universe. Talking about space telescope, I have to first tell you why "Space" telescopes are actually necessary. I will put you in a situation, Let us assume that you are placed in a room that has a single, large, transparent-mirrored, window and I will give you three cases.
1)You are looking out of the after it just Rained.
2)You are looking at the window on a normal day.
3)You are looking out of an open window.
Now If I ask you which one of the three views was clear, the answer would obviously be the third case. When telescopes are on Earth, Earth's atmosphere acts as that window after it just rained. So, Telescopes are launched into space to open the window to the cosmos! Coming to the James Webb Space Telescope, It is named after James Edwin Webb who was the second administrator of NASA and NASA quotes the telescope as the "Scientific Successor" of Hubble Space Telescope which not only provided us an astounding view of the universe but also only because of that telescope do we know that the universe is 13.7 billion years old and how planets form and more. And, Hubble space telescope was launched in 1990!! The major upgrade of the JWST from The Hubble Telescope is The JWST will be collecting the Infrared spectrum of light where Hubble collects the visible and UV spectrum. This is because Light has to travel through space to reach us and after traveling all that distance the visible spectrum gets absorbed by dust where the infrared can penetrate through dust and give us a better view like in this image,
James Webb Space Telescope is an international collaboration of NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency whose development efforts will be managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The James Webb Space Telescope has 7 basic parts as shown in this figure. Let us discuss every part in detail...
1)You are looking out of the after it just Rained.
2)You are looking at the window on a normal day.
3)You are looking out of an open window.
Now If I ask you which one of the three views was clear, the answer would obviously be the third case. When telescopes are on Earth, Earth's atmosphere acts as that window after it just rained. So, Telescopes are launched into space to open the window to the cosmos! Coming to the James Webb Space Telescope, It is named after James Edwin Webb who was the second administrator of NASA and NASA quotes the telescope as the "Scientific Successor" of Hubble Space Telescope which not only provided us an astounding view of the universe but also only because of that telescope do we know that the universe is 13.7 billion years old and how planets form and more. And, Hubble space telescope was launched in 1990!! The major upgrade of the JWST from The Hubble Telescope is The JWST will be collecting the Infrared spectrum of light where Hubble collects the visible and UV spectrum. This is because Light has to travel through space to reach us and after traveling all that distance the visible spectrum gets absorbed by dust where the infrared can penetrate through dust and give us a better view like in this image,
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| Source: jswt.nasa.gov |
James Webb Space Telescope is an international collaboration of NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency whose development efforts will be managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The James Webb Space Telescope has 7 basic parts as shown in this figure. Let us discuss every part in detail...
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| Image Source: Wikipedia |
The Primary Mirror: The Primary mirror will be consisting of 18 Hexagonal segments with each 6.5 meters across which is 7 times the size of Hubble's primary telescope and weighs 705Kg. All of the mirrors are made up of Beryllium coated with Gold. Gold for reflecting the infrared light and Beryllium because it's light and strong and it's resistance to high temperatures. This Primary mirror collects all the light and reflects it into the secondary mirror.
The Secondary Mirror: Unlike the Primary mirror, the secondary mirror consists of a perfectly rounded convex lens which reflects the light directly into the ISIM.
ISIM; ISIM, which expands to Integrated Space Science Module is the core of the telescope consisting of four science instruments that detect the light from galaxies and stars.
Star Trackers: These Star trackers are used to guide the Telescope to the stars that we want to know about.
Sun Shield; As the telescope is exposed to various heat threats like Sun, Sun's heat reflected by the Earth and the moon, Sun shield or Heat shield protects the Telescope from that heat.
Back Plane; Backplane acts as the support for the primary mirror. Like a tripod to a camera here on earth.
Space Craft Bus; It is used to transport the telescope like a bus transports us from one place to other on Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope with the size of a Tennis court is Scheduled to launch during the Spring of 2019 in a Heavy payload launch vehicle, Ariane 5 from French Guiana. It will be launched into the orbit which is called the L2 orbit whose Apogee(furthest point from Earth) is 1.5 Million Km! that is 4 times away from the moon for a better view than the Hubble that was launched in the lower Earth orbit. If Everything goes well, this telescope will be able to solve the mysteries of the universe and will be able to answer the questions like "Are we alone in the Universe?" and "How are galaxies born?" by looking far back in time and distance.
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| Source: jswt.nasa.gov |
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