James Webb Space Telescope

Above is a picture Webb took of a nebula

James Webb

The James Webb Space Telescope is a space telescope which conducts infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in space, its high resolution and sensitivity allow it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. This will enable investigations across many fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars, the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.

Cart Wheel Galaxy

Distance

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. This image provides a new view of how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years. The Cartwheel Galaxy, located about 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is a rare sight. Its appearance, much like that of the wheel of a wagon, is the result of an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved; the Cartwheel is no exception.

Webb and Hubble Comparison

The image on the left is visible light whereas the image on the right is infared.

Comparison

Webb's 21.3-foot primary mirror, which will use infared, is also significantly larger than Hubble's 7.9-foot primary mirror, which uses visible light. This gives Webb more than six times the light collecting area than what Hubble has. This is important at the longer and dimmer wavelengths of light Webb sees.

Webb in Space

Purpose

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope will probe the cosmos to uncover the history of the universe from the Big Bang to exoplanet formation and beyond. It is one of NASA's Great Observatories, huge space instruments that include the likes of the Hubble Space Telescope that peer deep into the cosmos.


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