Today (Saturday), at 14:20 Israel time, NASA will launch a James Webb space telescope from a facility in French Guiana – the largest and most sophisticated telescope ever sent into space. It is estimated to be worth about $ 9 billion.
It will serve as the main space observation tool for the next decade, replacing the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been used by researchers since 1990. The construction of the telescope took more than 30 years. NASA’s ambitious project was riddled with delays, budget overruns, redesigns and technical issues that have delayed the launch to date.
But for the ambitious project to get off the ground, the launch needs to go through successfully. And it’s not a trivial matter. The telescope, weighing 6.3 tons, will be released from the launch missile 26 minutes after takeoff. In the coming month, the telescope is expected to make its way to its destination – the orbit of Earth around a million and a half kilometers from our planet, about four times the moon’s distance from the planet. The telescope will observe the universe in infrared waves, which is expected to allow it to peek through gas clouds and interstellar dust where stars are born.
Its observational capability will allow a view of objects hundreds of millions of light-years away from Earth. Its advanced technology will provide the sharpest, clearest and most sensitive images of the early universe and will also make it possible to discover hundreds and possibly thousands of new galaxies.
James Webb will also be able to continue to explore whether there are signs of life on planets far from us. He will be able to identify what is in each star’s atmosphere and understand what its composition is, thus understanding whether it has oxygen, carbon and other elements that can hint at the feasibility of life.
The telescope will be based on the discoveries reached by the Hubble Telescope so far, which is now ending 31 years of orbiting the Earth. At the center of the new capabilities provided by James Webb, stands a gilded mirror 6.5 meters wide. This device will help the telescope monitor light from the first stars, which were formed 13.5 billion years ago. “We think there are supposed to be stars, or galaxies, or black stars that started about a hundred million years after the Big Bang,” said John Mader, a NASA scientist who won the Nobel Prize for the project. They will be there, the telescope will be able to find them. ”
“The web is an extraordinary task,” said agency chief Bill Nelson. “This is a clear example of what can be achieved when we dream big. We always knew this project was a risky investment. But when you want a big reward, you usually have to take a big risk.”