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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, designed to offer an unprecedented view of the universe, was launched this Saturday, December 25, on the Ariane 5 rocket from the launch port in Kourou, French Guiana. This is a remarkable feat of engineering that will be observing space for a minimum of five years.
A new era for space exploration begins, after 25 years of study. The $ 9 billion James Webb infrared telescope was encapsulated in the Ariane 5 rocket and took off at 12:20 GMT this Saturday, December 25, from French Guiana.
The James Webb, named after a former NASA director, dislodged from the rocket after a 27:15 minute trip into space. Now, it will take a month to reach its destination, orbiting the Sun about a million and a half kilometers from Earth, or about four times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
When it reaches its point of location, the goal is for it to provide an unprecedented view of the universe at wavelengths of the near infrared and mid infrared, which will allow scientists to study a wide variety of celestial objects and be able to look at more 13.5 billion years ago to observe the first galaxies that were born after the Big Bang.
The telescope is a collaboration between the space agencies of the United States (NASA), Europe (ESA) and Canada (CSA).
An ultra-sensitive telescope to better understand the universe
The scientists and astronomers behind the launch of the James Webb telescope, whose delivery was delayed by a number of technical challenges and also by the Covid-19 pandemic, have every hope that the apparatus will revolutionize the understanding of the universe by observing parts. of the cosmos dating back billions of years.
The infrared telescope should also allow the search for atmospheres that host life around dozens of recently discovered exoplanets and take a closer look at Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.
The James Webb is so large that to transport it on the rocket it had to be folded into parts as if it were an origami figure. NASA officials assured that it was impossible to transport it fully armed due to its large size. Once it reaches space it will be fully unfolded, in its 18 hexagonal sections. This rather complex process will take two weeks to complete.
According to NASA, the device must open its parasol, which is the size of a tennis court, and then the primary mirror, 6.5 meters, with which it can detect the light of stars and distant galaxies, since it has with a sensitivity approximately one hundred times greater than that of the Hubble telescope which has been 600 kilometers above the Earth since 1990.
The length of this mirror will allow it to collect a lot of light from objects it observes in space and for the telescope to observe things in more detail.
The telescope will face temperatures as low as -230 degrees Celsius and is expected to operate for a minimum of five years, although it is intended to operate for ten.
The team behind the launch assures that the James Webb will equip astronomers and astrophysicists with the necessary capacities to expand the frontiers of knowledge about the solar system, the formation of stars and planets, and about the creation and evolution of galaxies. This is why the telescope, in addition to providing a new look at the universe, represents a milestone for the scientific community.
With Reuters, EFE and official media
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