After 25 years and over 10 billion US dollars, on Christmas Day 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was finally launched into space by a European Ariane 5 rocket. With its 6.5-metre primary mirror and its tennis-court-sized sunshield, Webb had to be folded up to fit in the rocket's fairing, only to be deployed step by step in the first two weeks of its mission (see box, 'Unfolding the telescope', on p36). However, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope won't take its first images of the Universe before late June or early July 2022, which begs the question - why?
It seems like an excessively long wait, especially since JWST arrived in its final orbit on 24 January. A total of three mid-course correction manoeuvres successfully placed the huge space telescope in a slow looping orbit around the second Lagrange point (L2), a stable gravitational point some 1.5 million kilometres behind Earth as seen from the Sun. "But a lot more needs to be done before we can start science operations," says Mark McCaughrean, the Senior Advisor for Science and Exploration at ESA (the European Space Agency), NASA's main partner in the programme.
For one, the telescope and its sensitive instruments, which left the French Guianalaunch platform at tropical temperatures, have to cool down to 230°C below zero.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2022-Ausgabe von BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der March 2022-Ausgabe von BBC Sky at Night Magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Unearthing galaxies in the archives
Comparing old Hubble data to today is revealing distant active galaxies
Voyager 1 is back online and exploring the unknown
An interstellar rescue brings the venerable spacecraft back after months out of action
When Haydn met the Herschels
Jonathan Powell on how the astronomer siblings inspired the famous composer
A quicker way to colourise your narrowband frames
Create a bicolour image in Siril using data from just two narrowband filters
Manhattanhenge
New York's urban island of Manhattan, with its gridiron street layout, sees summer Suns set neatly between skyscrapers. Jamie Carter explains the phenomenon
A very British eclipse
In 1927, Britain experienced its first total solar eclipse since 1724. Mike Frost looks at how, like 8 April 2024's US spectacle, eclipse fever swept the nation
The spirit of the eclipse
Eclipse chaser Yvette Cook reports on what it was like in the path of totality in Texas during 8 April's Great American Eclipse
Cosmic rays
In part two of our series, Govert Schilling looks at cosmic rays, the high-energy particles that bombard Earth from space
Stones of the SOLSTICE
Jamie Carter explores 12 ancient stones, tombs and temples across the world that align with the Sun at the solstice
Surfing spacetime with LISA
A new era of gravitational wave astronomy is on its way as the ambitious upcoming LISA space mission joins a host of huge detectors on Earth. Charlie Hoy explains