NASA’s Webb Telescope Will Look Deeper to the Edge of the Universe from Hubble

As large as a tennis court and 100 times as powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope will reveal the outer reaches of the universe in more detail than ever before. Webb “could open a new eye to the universe,” said Professor of Regents at Arizona State University and Dr. James Webb interdisciplinary scientist since 2002. Rogier Windhorst said.

In addition to providing new insights into our own solar system, the new telescope—with its giant golden mirror and infrared eye—will surpass what Hubble could see and capture images of some of the earlier stars and galaxies as they pass through 13.5°C. appear more. Billions of years ago, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

seeing red

Hubble is NASA’s Energizer, Dr. Windhorst said. In the 31 years since its launch in 1990, Hubble has taken more than 1.5 million photos, revealing that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and expanding our understanding of how planets form.

But Hubble was primarily designed to capture visible light, which represents only a small fragment of the spectrum of light emitted by stars and other celestial bodies. In contrast, Webb will capture a range of infrared light that is invisible to the human eye but that makes up most of the light coming our way from the oldest and most distant galaxies in the universe.

The human eye can see wavelengths of light ranging from 380 to 700 nanometers, or billionths of a meter. Hubble will see in the 90- to 2,500-nanometer range, while Webb will see a wider range of light wavelengths, from 600 to 28,500 nanometers.

Infrared cuts through clouds of gas and dust, allowing Webb to discover new stars and planets.

mirror, mirror on the web

The larger the mirror of a telescope, the more light it can collect and the more detailed images it can obtain. Webb’s 21.5-foot-wide gold-coated mirror is nearly three times larger than Hubble’s. This means that it can capture images with exceptional detail. It could even show the face of Abraham Lincoln on a penny from a distance of 24 miles.

NASA stunned the world in 2004, when it released Hubble’s Ultra Deep Field, an extraordinary photo of deep space showing galaxies visible 13 billion years ago, or within a billion years of cosmic dawn.

This exposure displays 10,000 faint galaxies, including a barely visible red spot, shown below. This distant galaxy that Hubble caught a glimpse of dates from 13.4 billion years after the Big Bang to 410 million years ago. Dr. Windhorst compared Hubble’s ability to see it to using the naked eye to see a firefly on the Moon.

The combination of Webb’s infrared detectors and large mirror will allow much more detail to house that red spot, along with many other specks in the sky.

The Hubble mission was to spend at least 15 years until 2005, capturing images of the universe, but remains in operation despite a series of technical glitches that threatened to shut it down permanently as recently as July Was.

The Webb mission is expected to continue for five to 10 years, with NASA hoping the telescope will produce its first scientific picture this summer.