This is the first science from the largest and most powerful observatory ever built after decades of work and $10 billion in spending. We have been waiting for the deepest image of the universe to be captured. The depths of the universe's history have never been seen before by humanity. The universe was 13 billion years old when the stars emitted their light. More than two decades of focused efforts by some of the world's greatest scientists and engineers resulted in this image. From concept to construction and testing, from launch to deployment andcommissioning the frigid depths of space to gathering and processing the data to ensure it sees more clearly than ever before. Thirty years from now, when we look back at the most amazing science, half of it will be what we plan to do, but half of it will be some really fascinating science. There are more images to come. We're going to learn a lot with this telescope, and it's going to take a long time. We're going to learn a lot more over time. I'm not sure what it might be. The James Webb Space Telescope is an observatory built to unveil how the universe first began to shine and much, much more. The first year of science will be very exciting. To see the first light in the universe will be one of the programs that we have been planning for 20 years. We will look at the atmospheres of other stars. Our current telescopes can't see the surface chemistry of objects in our solar system. The science will flow and it will be great.
It's the biggest space telescope ever made. Some of the most amazing discoveries of our lifetime will be produced.
The Big bang took place 13 billion years ago. The Hubble can see back to approximately 13 billion years. They are able to see all these stars.
How did you get to the point of being in the universe? It's not possible to see into that period. It is designed to peer into a part of the universe we have never seen before, when everything must have happened, when the first stars came into existence, and the first black holes appeared.
The light was stretched as the space time continuum stretched. Thirteen and a half billion years have passed since that light crossed the universe.
It had to go beyond what the Hubble Space Telescope could see.
Telescopes are encased in tubes and have mirrors and lens. Tubes are warm. Nature warms any structure you have. It warms up when the sun shines.
The mountain will give off its own heat if it is warm. The light from the telescope needs to be switched off. We do that by cooling it all the way down to this temperature. The telescope doesn't work anymore.
The exposed mirror and spindly secondary sun shields were the result of those considerations. The goal is to keep the telescope and its mirrors cold.
The heat of a bumblebee on the moon can be detected by the mountain. If we can get the telescope cooled all the way down to this temperature, it will be less sensitive.
We didn't know how to do this so I laughed a lot. The early days were trying to figure out what technologies needed to be invented. There was nothing at the time. In a systematic way, how do we go from this doesn't exist to this does exist.
A six and a half meter mirror is more than the observatory's eye. The mirror is the most important part of the entire thing. It is likely to be made again in both form and function, which is something that has never been done before. It is more than a mirror, it is a monument to the great things humans can do when we come together.
It did not want to exist and it really took sheer will to make it happen. It's been an honor for me to be able to watch some incredibly talented people pour their energy into this and almost make it happen.
Each segment can be shifted by millimeters all the way down to a few thousandths of a human hair with the help of actuator orders. They will make sure that the 18 primary segments are aligned. The 18 segments are initially pointing in different directions.
Each of the segments has a unique look on the sky. The mirrors are hard to understand. Each primary mirror segment has seven actuators, six of them move the segment and give each segment six degrees of freedom.
If you stretched the mirror out across the Atlantic, it wouldn't be big enough. This had to be easy. It had to be perfect at room temperature. The material bends and twists when we take it from room temperature to this incredibly cold temperature.
Each segment is the only way this can be done. We had to correct the mistake. We published it at the correct temperature. All the way down. It twists and bends. We would warm it up and polish it so that when it cooled down again, it was the correct shape.
It was difficult to do that. The test chamber was built in the Marshall space flight center. To bend back to the right shape, we needed the right material. When we put all these segments together, we used electronics and actuators to hang it, because when it cools, it bent back to it's original shape.
Even though it is a facility for the future, the JWST will see more and more into the past. Next generation of scientists will benefit from it. New windows are opening in the universe.
Jeyhan Karteltepe says "everything nominal" is his favorite word to use. It's not really significant.
I think they are going to come up with some questions that we haven't thought of yet.
The science is going to be carried forward by others, even though we have set the foundation.
There is. It's beauty, man. My gosh. All this stuff is folded up.
The first evidence that life arose here could be found by the JWST. Is it possible that one telescope could change every chapter of our textbooks? Time to find out.
It's going to change the way we view the universe, no question about it. The discoveries that come will be things we haven't thought about yet.
Our time is designed to span the full suite of science capabilities and we have been working on this for decades.
Black holes can form at any time. Black holes form in the center of the universe. The black holes interact with gas and stars. What does that do to the universe? How does it affect the hole? How does that affect how light travels around the world?
There will be science related to exoplanets and looking at some of the best ones to see if they have atmospheres similar to ours.
We assumed the exoplanets would look like the Earth or our solar system. All those exoplanets come from a wide variety of different solar systems, far more than our original models told us.
There will be observations of our solar system. The great red spot of Jupiter is a great place to look at distant objects. In the first year of the operation, all of that science will happen. It is going to be great.
The very first light is only the start. Billions of dollars and lifetimes of work have made this moment possible. This is only the beginning of a journey of discovery that will take us from the beginning of the universe to the end.
There are mysteries and treasures to be found along the way. The depths of the sky are unknown. We will find out soon.
World-changing science is what you'll discover. We have articles by more than 150 winners of the prize.
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