Lift-off, lift-off, the world cheered, postponed for 15 years James Weber space telescope finally waited for the time to lift off, I believe that this space telescope costing more than $10 billion can bring us a new vision, let us observe more details of the universe.
In October 2018, the Kepler Space Telescope, which had been in operation for more than nine years, was decommissioned due to fuel depletion, and in January 2020, the Spitzer Space Telescope, known as the "world's largest infrared telescope", was also announced.
Therefore, the outer space near the earth is only left with the "disease-ridden" Hubble space telescope, at this time, human beings urgently need a new telescope, and the Weber space telescope is born in line with the trend, so the world has set their sights on Weber.
The Weber Space Telescope is undoubtedly the most expensive and advanced infrared telescope at present, do you know how advanced it is?
First, the main mirror of the Weber Space Telescope is 6.5 meters in diameter, which is 2.7 times the diameter of the Hubble Space Telescope's main mirror and 7.6 times the diameter of the Spitzer Space Telescope's main mirror.
Second, the Weber Space Telescope is made up of 18 gold-plated hexagonal mirrors spliced together, which is very different from the design style of traditional space telescopes.
Third, the optical design of the Weber telescope is a tri-mirror achromatic dispersion that utilizes curved secondary and tertiary mirrors to deliver optical aberrations of the image, and a fine steering mirror to provide image stabilization.
Fourth, in order to adjust the optical system, the Weber Space Telescope is also equipped with 126 small motors, which are the most numerous in the world.
The Hubble Space Telescope has observed space 13.4 billion light-years away, so the Weber Space Telescope will be able to see the starry sky 36 billion light-years away, so the Weber Space Telescope is tailor-made to observe distant stars.
One of the most important missions of human exploration of the universe is to find extraterrestrial life, to find intelligent life like humans on Earth, in this regard, the Hubble Space Telescope is obviously not enough, and the Weber Space Telescope will have high hopes.
What is the biggest difference between the Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope?
The biggest difference between the two telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope is an optical telescope, the Webb Space Telescope is an infrared telescope, the optical telescope is to collect visible light to observe the universe, and the infrared telescope is to collect invisible infrared rays to observe the universe.
Light is the most amazing substance in the world, there is no one, with wave particle dichroism, saying that it is a light wave is a light wave, saying that it is a particle is a particle, in the consciousness of many people, visible light is called light, in fact, not, light can be divided into three kinds according to wavelength, ultraviolet, visible and infrared.
Infrared wavelengths exceed visible light, have a thermal effect, and any object with a temperature greater than absolute 0 degrees produces infrared, that is, even in the dark night sky, any object can be seen.
Recently, when search and rescue crews were searching for missing people on Ailao Mountain, infrared thermal imaging cameras came to the fore, making us realize what high technology is, even if the missing people have been killed, but still shown in thermal imaging cameras.
Therefore, any celestial body in the universe can become the object of observation of the Weber Space Telescope, while the Hubble Space Telescope can only see the objects that emit light or reflect light, and the other objects are not visible.
Why did Weber go to Lagrange Point L2, 1.5 million kilometres away?
Lagrange point is the gravitational equilibrium point, in other words, the object at this position is no longer affected by gravity and can remain stationary, there are 5 Lagrange points, namely L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5, and the farthest is L2 point, about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth.
Lagrange L2 is located on the Sun's earth connection line and on the Earth's side, which means that Lagrange L2 is located between the Earth's orbit and the Orbit of Mars.
There are two main reasons why the Weber Space Telescope chose Lagrange L2, which is far from Earth.
First, Lagrange L2 is the gravitational balance point between the Earth and the Sun, and the Weber Space Telescope almost does not need to consume fuel to run at this point for a long time, let alone run for 10 years, even if it is running for 30 years.
Second, based on the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, the sun radius and the Earth radius, we can calculate that the length of the Earth's shadow in space is 1.387 million kilometers, and the Lagrange L2 point, which is 1.5 million kilometers away, is not in the Earth's umbra, so the Weber Space Telescope will be illuminated by sunlight.
However, the Weber Space Telescope can always face the dark side of the Earth, with less thermal radiation, which can avoid unnecessary thermal radiation interference.
epilogue
The Weber Space Telescope is undoubtedly the most advanced space telescope in the world, and astronomers around the world have high hopes for it, and it will give us a new vision, perhaps to discover the long-awaited alien life of human beings, and even aliens with the same intelligence as humans. Interesting and informative scientific content, please pay attention to the only WeChat public account: Interesting Exploration