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Exploring new worlds in search of life

The James Webb Telescope is the successor to the Hubble space telescope but is more precise and efficient because of the size of its mirror, the range of light it can detect and its location.

These attributes will enable the Webb to study the planets in our solar system and other planetary systems in unprecedented detail. Moreover, the scientific instrument developed by Doyon’s team is designed to analyze many types of celestial bodies, including the atmospheric composition of distant exoplanets.

“What we’re looking for, our holy grail, are ‘biosignatures,’ that is, signs of extraterrestrial life,” explained iREx coordinator Nathalie Ouellette, an astrophysicist who does communications for the James Webb.

She hastened to add that we shouldn’t imagine these signs of life the way they are depicted in science fiction films: “We’re talking about finding signs of biological activity or the signature of certain molecules that we have identified as essential to life, such as oxygen, water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and ozone. Based on the presence of such molecules, particularly in certain combinations, we may be able to determine that conditions are conducive to the development of life when we explore an exoplanet using the telescope.”

Casting light on the dawn of the universe

The James-Webb telescope will orbit the Sun at the Lagrange point L2, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

Telescopes are also time machines of a sort. “Looking into space is like looking into the past,” said Ouellette. “Light waves travel so fast that, to the naked eye, they seem to flash instantly from one point to another. In space, however, the distances are so vast that the time it takes light to travel is perceptible.”

That makes the Webb a marvellous time machine. It will be able to see back in time to 200 million years after the Big Bang, something that has never been done before. “With the Hubble, we could go to 500 million years after the Big Bang, so now we’re going 300 million years further,” noted Ouellette. “That’s remarkable, considering that the beginning of the universe was a tumultuous period. Galaxies were colliding and stars were forming at a rapid pace.”

“Tell me where you come from and I’ll tell you who you are”

The Webb will thus improve our understanding of the development of the first luminous objects (galaxies) over time. Ouellette believes the telescope will also provide insight into the creation of our own solar system.

“We still have many questions about the origins of life in our solar system. We don’t know exactly how we came to be on Earth and how the planets were formed,” Ouellette pointed out. “By studying other systems, stars and planets at various stages of development, we hope to be able to trace our own history and understand ourselves better.”

That is the ultimate goal of the James Webb: to revolutionize our understanding of the universe and, above all, to place the Earth, in all its fragility and uniqueness, in a broader context.

AUSTIN (KXAN) – We could soon bear witness to the origins of the universe.

After nearly 30 years and $10 billion, the James Webb Space Telescope will take flight. Launching Christmas Day, the telescope is the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built.

The James Webb Space Telescope is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched into orbit in 1990. Why is Webb so much more powerful than Hubble?

The science behind the James Webb Space Telescope

It is all about light. Light comes in many forms: ultraviolet, X-rays, infrared and visible light. Visible light is what our eyes can see, but it can only travel so far before it fades. While infrared light travels much farther and isn’t as easily blocked by objects in space. Earlier this month, NASA launched a satellite capable of seeing X-rays.

There are several forms of light, but human eyes can only see visible light. The Webb telescope can see infrared

Hubble has been our premiere space telescope for decades, but it primarily sees visible light, while the James Webb Space Telescope sees infrared.

“This means it will allow us to peer through clouds of gas and dust in our own galaxy, where stars are being born today,” said Eric Smith, Program Director and Program Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope in an interview with the Associate Press.

Because infrared light travels longer distances before fading, Smith said it will allow us to see “farther back in time, to the time where the very first stars and galaxies were being born.”

Telescopes as time machines

How can we see the birth of stars and galaxies that happened billions of years ago.

“A telescope is really a time machine because light travels at a finite speed through the universe,” said Klaus Pontoppidan, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in an interview with the Associated Press. “We see the universe as it existed when that light is emitted.”

For instance, it takes eight minutes for light to travel from the sun to the earth. So when you’re looking at the sun, you’re actually looking at the sun eight minutes in the past.

Pontoppidan says that by looking at light through the Webb Space Telescope, we’re looking at light that’s traveled 13-billion years. “We think we’ll see the first galaxies. We will find things that we have no idea exists right now.”

How the James Webb Space Telescope will see infrared

The telescope sees using a 21-foot wide gold mirror made up of several smaller gold panels, each of which can be adjusted to be collect light. To detect infrared light, it will need to be protected from our sun’s light. To do this, Webb uses a giant Mylar (the same stuff used in birthday balloons) sun shield.

The Webb Telescope uses a sun shield to protect itself from the sun’s light.

“There are five distinct layers (to the shield),” said David J. Hedland with Columbia University’s Department of Astronomy. “On the sun-facing side of the bottom layer, the temperature is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. On the telescope facing side of the top layer, you’ve deflected so much of the light that the temperature is -375 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Getting the Webb telescope into orbit

Getting Webb into space isn’t easy. The telescope is so large it had to be folded up inside of the rocket that is launching it. It will do its work about 1 million miles from Earth at what is known as a Lagrange point.

A Lagrange point is sort of a fixed point in space, where the gravitational force of two celestial bodies keep a third object at roughly the same location while it orbits. Basically, the gravity of the Sun and the Earth will keep Webb at a point where the Earth is always blocking the telescope from the majority of the sun’s light.

Once Webb reaches this point, it will have to unfold itself from the rocket. This process could take months, at which point the telescope will have to align itself. If the something happens during this process, the telescope will be too far from Earth for anyone to be able to fix it.