Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
NASA said to be conducting a final physical examination on the Space Telescope James Webb long awaited.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The observatory is named after James E. Webb, someone who had led NASA from 1961 to 1968.
The US Space Agency is said to be launching the telescope using a European Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana to send it into space on a historic mission to investigate the currently unobservable range of the universe.
NASA developed the James Webb telescope after partnering with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
The James Webb telescope was originally scheduled to launch on December 18, but NASA is said to have encountered an incident during its preparation period so it was postponed and no earlier than December 22 to give engineers time to ensure readiness for flight within a million miles of Earth.
Among its many mission objectives, the James Webb Space Telescope will also explore how early galaxies formed and evolved.
In addition, the telescope will probe the atmospheres of distant exoplanets for chemical signatures of life, observe the birth of new stars, and gaze at the darkness of galaxies such as supermassive black holes.
Finding life beyond Earth
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades. It orbits about 300 miles from Earth’s surface and sets the bar high for future space discoveries.
The telescope made thousands of observations with its 2.4-meter telescope, providing surprising information about the size, age, expansion, and evolution of the universe.
For example the birth and death of stars, the formation of planets, and the many hidden wonders that are scattered in our own solar system.
It’s fair to say that no other observatory, on land or in space, has revealed more about the cosmos than Hubble.
Even NASA’s new flagship space telescope will follow up on new exoplanet discoveries by measuring their atmospheres, looking for signs of water and chemical clues about possible extraterrestrial life.
The James Webb Telescope is different from the Hubble
While Hubble focused on the light emitted by stars, nebulae, galaxies and more, the James Webb telescope specialized in infrared astronomy to collect and analyze lower energy electromagnetic radiation.
This will not only enable the study of cooler objects and materials, such as the atmospheres of distant planets and the clouds of gas and dust that give birth to new star systems, but will also open a window on the infrared universe.
Observations from the Earth’s surface are inaccessible because the atmosphere blocks out most of the wavelengths of infrared light.
Webb will not orbit the Earth like Hubble did. Instead, it will orbit the sun at Earth’s “L2” Lagrangian point, where the gravitational pull of the Earth and the sun cancels each other out, then forming a stable space pocket in which spacecraft can roam indefinitely.
This location offers the dual advantage of keeping the observatory within easy communication range while keeping it away from Earth’s intense electromagnetic interference.
Engineers designed Webb’s main mirror, which is nearly three times the diameter of Hubble, to fit the launch rocket. The telescope’s light-gathering apparatus consists of 18 individual hexagonal mirrors that will be unlocked once launched during the months-long journey to its destination.
Operators expect the observatory to be ready to make scientific observations about six months after launch.
Potential Discoveries by the James Webb Telescope
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