By Annie Ahern ’23
Health & Science Editor
The James Webb Space Telescope has recently made its way to the destination teams of scientists and engineers worked for years to send it to.
With 18 hexagonal mirrors covered in a thin layer of gold, the $10 billion project is in place orbiting L2, a Lagrange point 1.5 million km from earth. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the Lagrange point is a gravitationally stable point in space where an object such as a telescope can pseudo-orbit, or cyclically “hover” in space using opposing gravitational forces. The Lagrange point has previously proven to be an invaluable tool in stabilizing the position of space telescopes.
The telescope’s position has been a popular point for previous telescope orbits, including the Herschel telescope, which is also an infrared space telescope. However, the Webb telescope modifies the methods used in the Herschel telescope granting researchers a new layer of understanding for the world beyond our atmosphere.
According to NASA, the telescope will provide groundbreaking data allowing analysts to uncover long-held secrets of the universe, the Big Bang, and other astronomical phenomena. As mentioned by NASA in their space.com synopsis of the telescope’s function, the infrared telescope technology allows imaging to see through space dust extending the visualization capabilities exponentially beyond that of a similar, non-infrared telescope.
But, so what? How does seeing that far teach us anything about the creation of the universe, the Big Bang? For this, we need to understand the properties of light. As explained by NASA in their dynamic James Webb Space Telescope article discussing the progression of space telescope technology, the farther away an image observed, the farther back in time we are looking. This is because the time it takes light to travel, though it may appear otherwise, is not instantaneous. An object that is one light-year away is the distance traveled going at the speed of light for one year. Because of this property, the Webb telescope observing light from 100 million light years away is observing an image that is 100 million years old, the time it took for the light to travel that far.
This can be applied outside of observing the Big Bang as well. For example, if you would like to see a pterodactyl, National Geographic says you would have to go back approximately 150 million years. Alternatively, you could hypothetically homestead on an asteroid 150 million light-years away and aim a sophisticated space telescope at earth.
Like its predecessor the Herschel telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope only observes specific wavelengths of light chosen to target specific phenomena. With a wavelength observation range of 0.6–28.5 microns as reported on the James Webb Space Telescope NASA website, observing the end of the infrared spectrum opposite to the Herschel telescope range of 6–500 microns. This allows researchers to observe older galaxies where the Herschel telescope observed forming galaxies.
Updates on the results of this massive endeavor can be found on the NASA website, “Where Is Webb?” Currently, the extensive process of preparing Webb to do its job is underway with the telescope performing its mirror deployment and alignment in preparation for its incredible job of looking into the past.
