James Webb Space Telescope. Photo by Kevin Gill from Nashua, NH, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
Space is the final frontier for human exploration. Many people have been saying this for a few decades now. Some people like astronomer Galileo Galie said it hundreds of years ago. Humans from all over the world have been itching to learn about the cosmos. The James Webb Telescope is NASA’s most recent attempt to make sense of the cosmos. Thanks to its modern tech and the hard work done by NASA we will be able to see space in a way we have never been able to before.
Understanding the importance of James Webb you will need to think of all the tools used in the past. There are much older people such as Copernicus and Galileo. You can even look back at our grandparents old understanding of space. It was on January 31st, 1958, when NASA launched Explorer 1, that was the first successful satellite launch in NASA’s history. Now with JWST we are able to see things Galielo and our grandparents could only dream of.
It is also important to understand where we are as a species on space exploration. There is still so much we don’t know about space. It was only a few decades ago satellites like Explorer and Voyager were launched. The information we have received from these missions has been crucial in understanding where we live. Even with those pivotal missions there is still much we do not know. In an interview with ABC Bill Nye said, “Both my grandparents were born in the nineteenth century. When they were born no one knew that there was relativity, let alone what they could do with it. So, the discoveries that are going to be made in the coming decades with JWST may lead to an understanding of dark matter, dark energy, black holes, and the evolution of stars. Which may lead to things we cannot imagine right now.” There is little we currently know about things like dark matter, dark energy and black holes. But thanks to JWST we just might be able to make more sense of it all. The coming decades will be some of the most exciting times for space travel in human history.
It is easy to get caught up in the unknowns of space. There is much that is left to the imagination due to the lack of information of its size and complexity. With that being said, we do have a good understanding relative to what people in the past knew. JWST is outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment our ancestors could only dream of. There are four instruments aboard the telescope: near-infrared camera, near-infrared spectrograph, mid-infrared instrument and a fine guidance sensor/near infrared imager and slitless spectrograph.
Near and mid infrared is a part of the color spectrum that we cannot see. Near is on the part of the spectrum that is close to what we can see and Mid is completely removed from visible light. A telescope such as Hubble was only looking at visible light. Hubble is only able to see roughly one billion years after the Big Bang. JWST is using infrared and will be able to see approximately one-hundred million years after the Big Bang. The reason for that is because of how the light is stretched by the expansion of the universe as it travels. Light begins to redshift as it is stretched out. So the farthest galaxies and star systems are going to be redshifted to the light being stretched over such a large distance. Being able to see such distant objects is like looking into the past. OCCC professor Tad Thurston said, ”these telescopes are in a real sense a time machine. James Webb will be able to see all the way back to before the first stars.” Being able to see so far into the past is an exciting moment for humanity.
About Post Author
