(CNN) – This is a moment that has been waiting for decades. The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s flagship space laboratory successfully launched in the next decade.
The Ariane 5 rocket took off from the Europa space base in French Guiana at 7:20 a.m. (Miami time).
The web telescope has endured many years of delays, including a combination of factors caused by epidemiology and technological challenges. But the world’s most powerful and complex space laboratory will answer questions about our solar system, study exoplanets in new ways, and explore the universe more deeply than we can.
Credit: NASA
The web monitors the atmospheres of exoplanets, some of which are habitable, and can detect traces in the current search for extraterrestrial life.
The telescope is fitted with a mirror 6.5 meters long, which allows the glass to collect more light from the objects it observes when the telescope is in space. The more light the mirror can capture, the more detail the telescope can see.
The glass has 18 gold-plated hexagonal sections, each 1.32 meters in diameter.
This is the largest telescope ever built NASAThe company said, but its size created a unique problem. The object was too large to fit inside the rocket. So the NASA team designed the telescope in sequence Foldable moving parts Origami style and fits at intervals of 5 meters for launching.
According to NASA, the web will act as an infrared detector, detecting light that is invisible to us and revealing hidden areas of space.
Paul Aerospace Optical Technician Scott Murray examined the first gold primary glass part of the telescope.
Since 2004, thousands of scientists, technologists and engineers from 14 countries have spent 40 million hours building the telescope, including equipment from the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.
Now, Webb is ready to understand the origin of the universe and begin to answer key questions about our existence, such as where we came from and if we were alone in the universe.
What the telescope sees
The Web Telescope tracks every phase of cosmic history, including the first flashes after the Big Bang that created our universe and the formation of the stars, stars and planets that make it up today. Its capabilities will allow the laboratory to study the faint signals of the first galaxies that formed 13.5 billion years ago and to answer questions about our own solar system.
The telescope can look at extraterrestrial planets in their atmospheres, carefully observe them if they exist, and answer questions about how planets formed and evolved. Data collected by the telescope can tell scientists if there is methane, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide in the atmosphere. The gases in these alien atmospheres may reveal the building blocks of life.
Other objects of interest to early scientific propagation include the vast black hole in the center of the Milky Way, the active formation of planetary systems, the bright quasars in the center of the galaxy, and the remnants of the formation of our solar system. Khyber belt materials.
What can you do
For all its heights, designing the web was an extraordinary challenge. The laboratory is made up of three main components.
One is an integrated set of scientific tools, which includes four tools of the web. These instruments are primarily used to capture images or spectroscopy, dividing light into different wavelengths to determine the physical and chemical components.
The main eye, also known as the optical telescope element, consists of the rear plate or column supporting the glasses and mirrors. Then there is the element of the spacecraft, which includes the structure of the spacecraft and the parasol.
It looks like a sack that encloses with a drawstring.
This part of the spacecraft includes six key components needed to operate the spacecraft, including propulsion, power, communications, data and thermal controls. This “bus” design is not really like a bus, it is used to support the spacecraft’s infrastructure.
The five-layer sunshade folds to the size of a tennis court and protects the giant glass and equipment from the heat of the heat because they must be kept at a very cool -188 degrees Celsius to operate.
When will the first films come out?
After being launched from French Guiana, the laboratory will travel for about a month until it reaches orbit about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth. During those 29 days, the web spreads its glass and spreads sunlight. This process involves thousands of parts that need to work properly in the right order.
Fortunately, every step can be controlled from below in case of problems.
Then it will pass a dictating period of six months in space. This includes cooling, alignment and calibration of the equipment. All tools go through a verification process to see how they work.
This image shows a full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope in southwest Austin.
In late 2022 it will start collecting data and its first images. Thousands of scientists have been waiting for years to see what the web can show us.
“The first year of web observations will provide the first opportunity for a wide range of scientists around the world to track specific targets through NASA’s next large space laboratory,” said Thomas Jurbusen, co – executive of NASA. NASA Directorate of Science Operations, This is a statement.
“The wonderful science that will be shared with the global community will be bold and profound.”
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