Hubble just launched on a historic mission to observe the faintest, oldest objects in the universe in unprecedented detail.
The James Webb Space Telescope lifted off from the launch pad on Saturday at 7:21 a.m. The time is 12:20 p.m. The time. The Ariane 5 rocket carrying the telescope was speeding away from Earth. NASA representatives said in a statement that once in space, the telescope will unfold and deploy its mirrors and other instruments and assume its fixed position, with observations scheduled to start six months after launch.
The Ariane 5 rocket and its precious cargo blasted off from the Guiana Space Centre, also known as Europe's Spaceport. The European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and NASA collaborated on the mission. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operating the new telescope, says the project has been in development for over two decades.
There are photos of the James Webb Space Telescope.
There are some good videos for you.
As the rocket lifted off from the launch pad, NASA broadcasted that the journey would begin from a tropical rainforest to the edge of time.
At 7 a.m. The main stage rocket engine and the upper stage engine burned for 16 minutes to put the telescope in its preliminary position. That ended at 7:45 a.m. The coasting phase began when the JWST entered. The telescope was gently pushed away from the rocket by springs at 7:44 a.m.
The telescope separated from the rocket and took its first steps in space as mission control team members shouted "Go Webb, go!" The solar array was deployed at 7:50 a.m. cheers erupted across the mission control room after it was confirmed that James Webb has legs and power.
"We are going to launch for humanity this morning," said Stéphane Isral, CEO of Arianespace. We will never see the skies in the same way again.
As the telescope moved away from the rocket and began its solo journey in space, the upper-stage camera on Ariane 5 captured this view of the last time it will be visible from Earth. The image is from NASA.
The cost of building the telescope doubled since 2009, and is now headed for a destination that's 1 million miles from Earth. It won't be possible for astronauts to visit the space station to perform repairs if something goes wrong, as they did for the Hubble Space Telescope, so team members and agency officials had been closely monitoring equipment and weather to make sure that everything onboard was operating as it should.
The launch of the JWST was delayed due to concerns about instruments and the COVID-19 Pandemic, according to NASA. The launch was delayed in October, November, and December and again in December due to bad weather at the launch site in South America.
The size of a school bus is what the James Webb Space Telescope is supposed to be. The image is from NASA GSFC/CIL.
With the telescope unfurling all of its gear and ready to become fully operational, teams of scientists and engineers will eagerly await signals indicating that the next stages of deployment are underway.
The antenna of the JWST will be extended toward Earth. After three days, sun shield deployment begins. The telescope will be fully deployed by 13 days after launch, but it will still need months of testing in space before observations and data collection begin, according to NASA.
Follow the dust.
It's going to be very busy when the JWST is up and running. It will allow researchers to penetrate dense clouds of Cosmic Dust and collect data from objects that are so faint they are almost invisible by other telescopes, and it has the most powerful "eyes" ever sent into space.
One of the first scientists in line to collect observations with JWST will aim it at brown dwarfs, which are sometimes called "failed stars." Brown dwarfs are less massive than gas giant planets and less cool than the smallest stars. They fall in the sweet spot of the wavelength.
She said that they have been looking at brown dwarfs with the help of powerful tools such as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer. We're not at the bottom of the barrel anymore. When you turn the faucet on, it pours water at you, and that's when the secrets start flowing.
Researchers were previously "squinting and guessing" about the composition of brown dwarfs. "Here you go, this is all the data you've ever wanted," he said. It's so exciting to think about that.
A newborn star shoots twin jets out into space from a cloud complex located about 1350 light-years away from Earth. The Herbig-Haro objects are clumps of superheated dust and gas surrounding newborn stars, and they are among the targets for observation. D. Padgett (GSFC), T. Megeath (University of Toledo), and B. Reipurth (University of Hawaii) are pictured.
The JWST will be able to detect and look through the dust clouds surrounding the stars. Other researchers will use the JWST to investigate dust shrouds and to create and test models of the explosion that created the Crab Nebula. The atmospheres of exoplanets in the Trappist-1 system are being investigated, as well as to peer back in time to discover the earliest galaxies. The birth of stars, planets and galaxies in our universe can be seen through the lens of the JWST.
She said that it was like a "crusade back to the secrets of how the first galaxies formed and how they ended up evolving and then turning into what we know in our local area to be the way the universe looks today."
What is in a name?
A bright future of never-before-seen observations is promised by the JWST. The telescope's name comes with baggage from a darker period in NASA's past.
NASA launched the lunar exploration missions of the pioneer Project Apollo under the watch of James Webb, the space agency's second administrator. Critics point out that at a time when gay and lesbian employees experienced discrimination and persecution, Webb oversaw the agency. During the "Lavender Scare" of 1949 to 1952, he served as the U.S. Undersecretary of State.
The petition stated that "Archival evidence clearly indicates that Webb was in high-level conversations regarding the creation of this policy and resulting actions." It was launched in May and has since gathered more than 1,700 signatures.
Astronomers argue that putting the name of a man on a telescope legitimizes discrimination. NASA agreed to investigate the matter, but in late September they announced that the telescope would go ahead as planned.
Live Science published the original article.
