The gambling of scientists — James Webb Space telescope
NASA`s long-awaited space telescope “James Webb” will be launched from French Guiana on 25th of December, 2021. We can consider launch of most powerful telescope ever created as Christmas present for astronomers by NASA. “James Webb” promises for tons of new discoveries that will most probably be the game changer. Similarly to Hubble Space Telescope, JWST will have crucial role to switch our approach for deep space explorations from on spot, to “remote”.
NASA, ESA, CFA have put effort into together nearly three decades in order to complete all their hardware/software set-up and place the telescope onto launch pad with ESA`s one of the most powerful rockets — “Ariane 5”. NASA’s lifetime cost for the project is expected to be around USD 10 billion including the operation costs.
The JWST will not be placed into Earth orbit, but, it will circle within Sun`s orbit at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2, 1.5 million kilometers (million miles) away from the Earth. For comparison, Hubble is in the Earth Orbit with 570 km distance from surface.
JWST will be technically capable to capture light waves from objects 13.6 billion light-years away will have taken that many years to reach the telescope’s mirror. Since, based on our calculations the Universe is around 13.8 billion years old, that means these objects were around just 100 to 250 million years after the Big Bang. But, distance is not only key factor which makes JWST that advanced. It`s mirror is also roughly 2.5 times bigger than Hubble, which allows telescope to receive lights at redshift 15 and occasionally seeing some at redshifts between 25 and 30.
Seeing the ancient galaxies is only one side of business. Scientists aim to explore the full life-cycle of galaxies from forming periods until present in order to investigate our own galaxy and all the neighbors. The telescope will also explore the dark matter and its role bringing galaxies together.
Then, what is the gamble about the mission?
JWST`s journey to launch pad was bumpy and long-awaited. Multiple delays, budget overruns had negative impact on its reference for society or tax payers, considering that, NASA is government funded organization. The potential failure could result in NASA never trying to develop a space telescope again. Even though, all the aspects and almost all scenarios has been tested, there is a room for failure, considering the complexity of “remote” preparations. Having around seven meters diameter mirror makes JWST impossible to launch without folding it, as there is no big enough rocket developed to house the spacecraft in its final configuration, as of now.
After successful departure, first task JWST should perform is get some solar energy with its panels. Then, it will open it`s antennas and will say “Hello, world!”. After successful communication, the origami process will start to unfold all mirrors and test all the instruments, once again. Having a lot of actions after arrival and considering the fact that, a tiny mistake can fail the whole mission, it is tough gamble for NASA and other involved parties. But, no one said that success will come easily.
“I really do think that this telescope will be transformational for astrophysics,” says Straughn (Deputy Project Scientist for JWST). “I think that we will learn things about the Universe that completely surprise us, and that’s one of the most exciting prospects about any time we put a big, bold telescope like this into space. We learn things that we never expected.”
Hopefully, we will enjoy early images of James Webb Space Telescope as proof of accomplishment during summer, after whole mission declared as “successful”.
