Reporting by XinZhiyuan
Edited by: David, Time
On January 8, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Astronomy, which has "jumped tickets" several times, finally completed its deployment and ended perfectly. Eighteen hexagonal lenses are grouped together to form a gilded "eye of the universe" 6.5 meters wide.
On January 8, 2022, the James Webb Astronomical Telescope, which has "jumped tickets" several times, was finally deployed. The largest and most sophisticated space telescope ever launched.
With 18 hexagonal lenses pieced together to form a gilded "cosmic eye" 6.5 meters wide, the Weber telescope will revolutionize space science with an unprecedented cosmology.
The 18 mirrors are like little girls doing their own things while looking at each other, and like a chorus, working together and methodically.
"The space deployment of the Webb telescope is a historic success." Gregory Robinson, director of NASA's Weber program, said.
This is a remarkable feat for the whole world and a truly historic milestone!
Its complex project consisted of deploying a visor, a kite-shaped, tennis court-sized visor used to shield telescopes from the sun's heat.
Its complex engineering also includes placing the telescope's primary and secondary mirror positions to capture light from stars, galaxies, and other cosmic objects.
The task ahead is still arduous
Space deployment is complete, what is the next step for the largest space telescope?
It still has a lot of complicated commissioning work to do, and the $10 billion device faces many major tasks. NASA specifically noted that in the coming weeks, it will calibrate its mirrors and four instruments. Work on the Weber telescope has only just begun.
For now, the Weber task force is now turning its attention to the telescope's destination. Weber is heading to his new home, about 1.5 million kilometers (less than 1 million miles) from Earth, in an area known as Lagrange Point.
Weber will arrive at L2 (Lagrange Point 2) in about two weeks, which is the ideal location for his mission. If it reaches the right area, it can stay put with minimal fuel due to near-perfect alignment with the Sun, Earth, and Moon.
When entering L2, the instrument will become very cold, which is the ideal working environment for it, when various scientific instruments will be activated.
Far from the sun and visor, Weber will work in the dark and will require thermally traced infrared observations. Infrared wavelengths will enable telescopes to penetrate dust and look inside young exoplanets or distant galaxies, all to understand the universe and its evolution.
Weber is about five months away before he starts returning results, and scientists can't wait to see the first data.
Weber and Hubble, Mission Inheritance
In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched and had to correct myopia due to engineering failures.
After 32 years, the Webb Space Telescope launched in early 2022 and successfully reached its destination, a space gravitational stabilization point known as L2.
There, it will study astronomical phenomena such as the universe's most distant galaxies, dust-wrapped newborn stars, and extrasolar planets.
Unlike Hubble, Webb can detect infrared light, which allows it to peek into previously unexplored areas.
It will find faint thermal signals from the depths of the universe, which is why it is required to operate at extremely low temperatures.
Weber's visor is key to reaching this low temperature, which is why scientists are very cautious about opening the visor and putting it in the right place.
Opening the visor begins with two rectangular trays, then unfolds the protective cover, pulls it into a kite-like shape, and finally tightens its five layers of tulle.
This process has been tested several times in laboratories on Earth, but never in a zero-gravity environment in space.
Photons jump between the lenses of the Weber telescope, making it an operational observatory.
What can a Webb telescope do?
The Webb telescope experiment took more than 30 years, NASA has repeatedly increased budgets, and european and Canadian space agencies are also partners in the project. Now, the researchers are finally relieved and have a moment to raise a glass of celebration. It will take over the baton of hubble and continue to explore the mysteries of the vast universe.
Infrared light detection
Hubble is designed to detect visible and ultraviolet light. Galaxies in the early stages of formation do emit visible light, but because the observation distance is too long, the wavelength of visible light is stretched to the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum due to "redshift", which is equivalent to infrared light.
McColling, then a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, was one of the scientists who developed the early infrared detector. In the 1980s, he said, to obtain infrared images, a detector could only scan one pixel at a time, which was very time-consuming to form an image.
Since the early days of hubble, this technology has made great progress, and the accuracy of infrared light detection with the James Webb Space Telescope has been greatly improved.
The infrared detector on The Webb telescope is said to have 2,000 x 2,000 pixels, which is much more than the optical pixels at hubble launch.
The increase in infrared imaging resolution is crucial for imaging the farthest distances in the universe. The Hubble Space Telescope can only make rough estimates of a rough approximation, such as the age and chemical composition of galaxies, while the Weber Telescope can make precise calculations.
Observe the formation of the early universe
The mystery of early star and galaxy formation has long puzzled everyone, and the Webb telescope will provide the best perspective for early observations of the universe.
When it comes to distant galaxies, Hubble's long-wave observation capabilities no longer work, resulting in uncertain detection results.
Some scientists believe that the Weber telescope can solve this problem, to be precise, to see the formation of galaxies 250 million years after the Big Bang.
Chemical elements in the universe change
Olivia Jones, a scientist at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, is most interested in what happens when these early stars die. Releasing their material into their surroundings, resulting in new stars?
Astronomers knew that the chemical composition of the early universe was very different from today's. The matter of the early universe consisted only of hydrogen, helium, and a small amount of lithium. All the other chemical elements we see now, including those that provide the conditions for life to conceive and evolve, evolved over billions of years in the interiors of these stars.
The Orion Nebula is a well-known star-forming region. The James Webb Space Telescope will be able to see its heart through the dust
The beamsplitters on The Weber telescope can probe the "chemical kitchens" of early galaxies to understand what "food" is being done inside individual stars, and what elements will be provided for the wider universe when these stars explode in the form of powerful supernovae.
As scientists believe, in the past we only studied the whole process on a galactic scale, but with the Webb telescope, we can specifically examine individual stars.
Through the dust, it reaches the star-forming region
The Webb telescope has a powerful infrared penetration capability, which is able to penetrate dust and enter the regional centers of hidden nebulae, galaxies and stars.
Stars are being born like the Orion Nebula, and people can't see them in visible light because the light is absorbed by cosmic dust.
The previous infrared observatories were small and could not be seen very far. Also, multiple targets are mixed together.
Today, the Weber telescope sees more distant galaxies, separates many of its targets, and can observe the entire process.
The James Webb Space Telescope will also observe some of the closer targets, such as the comets and asteroids that make up the Kuiper Belt.
Exploration of the outer solar system and exoplanets
With the Webb telescope, we can look out from Earth and observe planets such as Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Kuiper Belt.
The Kuiper Belt is a reservoir of comets, asteroids, and other debris objects that orbit beyond Neptune in the outer solar system.
It's a dark, cold area that's hard to explore because these celestial bodies reflect very little light.
These objects are very low in temperature and reflect very little light, requiring large infrared telescopes to complete, and the Weber telescope can perform excellent spectral analysis of Kuiper Belt objects.
Since the idea of the Weber Space Telescope was proposed, astronomers have been exploring continuously, and finally it has changed from what was originally conceived to a reality.
The Webb telescope is not only capable of discovering more planets, but is also able to provide more detailed details about them.
Scientists predict that in 10 years' time, many breakthrough astronomical discoveries will be produced by it, and this may come from today's completely unknown territory.
Resources:
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-steps-after-deployment
https://www.sciencealert.com/in-a-historic-milestone-webb-has-successfully-fully-deployed-now-what