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10/1/22
New Space Telescope
On Christmas Day a new space telescope, called the James Webb Telescope was launched into space. It’s been in development for years yet finally launching it up into space wasn’t the last step.
Once it was in space it had to unfold from its launch position and finish its completion up in space, a major part of that happened successfully this weekend on the 8th January.
The James Webb Telescope will take images further into space than ever before, showing us ancient stars and galaxies we’ve never been able to see. It will also look at the atmosphere of distant planets to see if it would be possible for life to exist on them. As well as looking a lot closer to home, looking at our solar system in more detail too.
It is the Hubble Space Telescope’s replacement and cost 7.4billion pounds to create. The Hubble Space Telescope has taught us such amazing things about space but this new technology will go even further.
You can find more about the Hubble Space Telescope on our Space and Exploration pages.
Here are just a couple of the images the Hubble Space Telescope has produced. If these are anything to go by the images we’ll see from the James Webb Telescope will be absolutely amazing!
The James Webb Telescope
The James Webb Telescope is really big and about the same size as a three story building so to get it into a rocket and up to space it had to be folded up to make it much smaller. Since it was launched parts have been unfolded and been adjusted into the correct positions.
Its massive sunshield, which is the size of a tennis court and a smaller, secondary mirror were first to be unfolded and set up. This weekend the telescopes gold coated mirror, which is 6.5 metres wide was opened, which was the final major step in its deployment.
The sunshield the telescope has is a very important part as it protects the rest of the equipment from the suns intense heat. The mirrors are what the telescope use to see deep into space. The James Webb Telescope needed a really big mirror, as the bigger the mirror the further into space it can see. The main mirror the telescope has is so big not only did it need to be unfolded once in space, it is also made up of 18 hexagonal mirrors that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
The James Webb Telescope can see infrared light, which the human eye can’t. It is the same kind of technology that fire fighters use to see through smoke filled rooms and it can detect images through the heat objects and people give off. The ability to see infrared light means the telescope will be able to see much more of space and see through dust clouds and thick atmospheres. The telescopes huge mirror is coated in gold as this material is really good at reflecting infrared light.
Now months of fine tuning are needed before its ready to start taking images of space. It is hoped it will be ready to take its first images in May.
The James Webb Telescope is going to be positioned much further out in space than the Hubble Telescope. It will be one million miles away from the Earth when it reaches its final destination, about 1 month after launch. The telescope will be four times further out than our moon, held in the correct place by gravity. It isn’t orbiting Earth but is going to be orbiting the Sun instead.
All photos and illustrations in this blog post are Whizzbots, Shutterstock and Creative Commons Images.
Other images on the site may be Public Domain Images.