With its six-metre aperture, James Webb is the largest telescope ever launched into space and from its vantage point a million miles from Earth, it is expected to deliver the best, most detailed views of the universe we have ever seen
This article by Martin Barstow, University of Leicester originally appeared on the Conversation and is published here with permission.
This is not just a testament to the skill of the engineers, technicians and scientists in the project. It also highlights the tremendous importance of the testing programme carried out on Earth to verify the procedures and which occasionally revealed problems that needed to be fixed before launch. While this sometimes resulted in schedule slippages and cost increases, it has ultimately produced a perfect telescope.
Unveiled by US president Joe Biden, the stunning image of SMACS 0723, a cluster of thousands of galaxies, was released on July 11. The massive foreground galaxy groups magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, helping us to peer back in time at very faint objects. James Webb has also caught a glimpse of Stephan’s Quintet, a group of five galaxies that are merging some 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. The image also suggests there’s a supermassive black hole at the centre, and shows stars being born. The data will tell us more about how galaxies evolve and the rate at which supermassive black holes grow.
The next, spectacular image is of the Southern Ring or “Eight-Burst” nebula, a planetary nebula, which is an expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star, or in this case two dying stars orbiting each other. It is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located approximately 2,000 light years away from Earth.
All these instruments, which look at deep space in different wavelengths, had to be cooled down, along with the telescope, otherwise they would radiate background heat which would interfere with the sensitive observations of astronomical objects. The last to be turned on was MIRI, which operates at the lowest temperature, just seven degrees above absolute zero, which took several months to achieve.
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