Move Over Hubble, Meet the New High Powered Star Searcher

NASA’S James Webb Space Telescope

Excerpt from space.com

NASA’s James Webb Space

Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018, will probe the cosmos to

uncover the history of the universe from the Big Bang to alien planet

formation and beyond.



Scientists are planning to use the infrared telescope to search for the

first galaxies that formed at the beginning of the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope

(JWST) will also have the ability to look through cosmic dust clouds to

find newly forming planetary systems and seek out the chemical origins

of life in the solar system.

The powerful

$8.8 billion spacecraft is also expected to take amazing photos of

celestial objects like its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Instruments on board

The JWST will come equipped with four science instruments.

• 
  Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) — Provided by the
  
  University of Arizona, this infrared camera will detect light from stars
  
  in nearby galaxies and stars within the Milky Way. It will also search
  
  for light from stars and galaxies that formed early in the universe’s
  
  life. NIRCam will be outfitted with coronagraphs that can block a bright
  
  object’s light, making dimmer objects near those stars (like planets)
  
  visible.


• 
  Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) — NIRSpec will
  
  observe 100 objects simultaneously, searching for the first galaxies
  
  that formed after the Big Bang. NIRSpec was provided by the European
  
  Space Agency with help from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.


• 
  Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) — MIRI will produce amazing space photos
  
  of distant celestial objects, following in Hubble’s tradition of
  
  astrophotography. The spectrograph that is a part of the instrument will
  
  allow scientists to gather more physical details about distant objects
  
  in the universe. MIRI will detect distant galaxies, faint comets,
  
  forming stars and objects in the Kuiper Belt. MIRI was built by the
  
  European Consortium with the European Space Agency and NASA’s Jet
  
  Propulsion Laboratory.


• 
  Fine Guidance Sensor/Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS/NIRISS)
  
  — This Canadian Space Agency-built instrument is more like two
  
  instruments in one. The FGS component is responsible for keeping the
  
  JWST pointed in exactly the right direction during its science
  
  investigations. NIRISS will scope out the cosmos to find signatures of
  
  the first light in the universe and seek out and characterize alien
  
  planets.

The telescope will also sport a tennis court-size sunshield and a 21.3

foot (6.5 meter) mirror — the largest mirror ever launched into space.

Those components will not fit into the rocket launching the JWST, so both will unfurl once the telescope is in space.

James Webb the man

The JWST is named for former NASA chief James Webb. Webb took charge of the space agency from 1961 to 1968, retiring just a few months before NASA put the first man on the moon.

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Move Over Hubble, Meet the New High Powered Star Searcher