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The James Webb Space Telescope is about to be launched.
The image is from NASA and Bill Ingalls.
The new NASA space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, successfully launched into space on Christmas morning after taking off on top of a European Ariane 5 rocket. One of the most anticipated NASA missions in decades, a program that promises to transform how we study the deepest depths of the Universe, was launched.
NASA said at liftoff that James Webb would begin a voyage back to the birth of the Universe.
The initial trip to space may have been successful, but there is still a lot of risk ahead for the James Webb Space Telescope. The final location of the spaceship will be 1 million miles from Earth over the next month. The process of unfolding and shaping the spaceship is necessary for the telescope to observe the universe. There are hundreds of steps involved and many times a bad deployment could jeopardize the entire mission.
If everything goes according to plan, we will have one of the most important tools we have ever had.
If it all works out, the JWST will become one of the most important tools we have ever had for peering into the distant recesses of space. With a gold-plated mirror stretching 21 feet, or 6.5 meters wide, the JWST will be able to gather light from 13.6 billion light-years away. The distant clusters will be seen by the JWST as they were when the Universe came into being. Astronomers think that the Big bang happened 13 billion years ago.
On top of that, we can see everything from distant alien worlds and black holes to violent collision between dense stars. We might see things we were not expecting. Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, told The Verge that they are going to see surprises.
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The first glimpse of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Since 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has been circling the Earth. Hubble's mirror is just 8 feet, or 2.4 meters, wide. The next-generation observatory will be 10 to 100 times more sensitive than Hubble and will be able to pick up distant, faint objects. NASA claims that the telescope would be able to pick up the light from the bumblebee, which is at a distance from the Moon.
Astronomers have dreamed of the capabilities of the JWST for two and a half decades, but it has been difficult to turn those dreams into reality. Early mission engineers hoped to launch a huge space telescope as early as 2007, for a price tag as low as $1 billion. It took more time and money than anyone thought. The budget ballooned by billions of dollars after it missed one target launch date. Congress tried to cancel the project at one point, but agreed to continue funding it if NASA stuck to a cost cap. The cost of the mission has ballooned to almost $10 billion after NASA blew through that.
Astronomers have dreamed of the capabilities of the JWST for two and a half decades.
There were lots of testing and construction problems on the road to launch, which eventually made it known as being late. After a lot of hard work and lessons learned, the JWST finally arrived at its launch site in French Guiana in October, traveling by boat from California, where it had been undergoing final tests at the site of its primary contractor. The telescope went to South America. As engineers prepared the telescope for launch, a piece of the telescope snapped and sent a loud noise through the vehicle. The ground systems that supported the flight were working on a communications issue.
After all of the headaches and tension, the JWST made it to space in one piece this morning. The countdown was flawless, said Navias.
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An artistic rendering of JWST was completely unfurled.
The image is from NASA.
The telescope is just beginning. It was too large to fit on any existing rocket in its final form, so it had to be folded up. In the early 2000s, NASA and Europe agreed to fly the JWST on Arianespace's premiere Ariane 5 rocket. It was not enough for Ariane 5 to carry the JWST to space completely.
There is a long to-do list for the telescope. The high gain antenna will be deployed tomorrow to communicate with Earth, after it deploys its solar array to get power from the Sun. After that, the telescope will slowly deploy various beams and structures, reconfiguring its shape so that it can observe the light of the distant Universe. Its most important deployment is its sun shield, which consists of five thin layers of Kapton. In order to see in the light, the JWST must be very cold. The sun shield allows the JWST to remain cold. The shield must be perfect to guarantee the mission's success.
There is a long to-do list for the telescope.
The primary mirror had to be launched to space and will be fully deployed once that is completed. The final test is 29 days from now, when the JWST puts itself into a final position 1 million miles from Earth. It will live out the rest of its life, always pointing away from the Sun, until it runs out of fuel. The status of all of the crucial deployment is being provided by NASA.
It will be some time before the science begins, even if all those steps go well. Scientists will have to test out all of the instruments in order to make sure they work. If we are lucky, the first unbelievable images from JWST could be available this summer. NASA won't say what the first images will be, but they will be stunning.
The deputy project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center tells The Verge that they want to surprise the world with the images. The first science images are beautiful, stunning, amazing images. I can't wait to see what they look like.
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