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A 'Scope Like No Other
Cat’s Paw Nebulae & Lots More. Image from JWST/NASA
The greatest space observation tool. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) marked its 3rdAnniversary July 11 by releasing the above image.
NASA partnered with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agencies on this decades-long endeavor.
Yes, we’ve been enjoying images from the Hubbell Space Telescope for decades, but the Webb is far more powerful, sees in different wavelengths and is better positioned for viewing the Universe.
As in, 3.72 times farther than the Moon, 930,000 miles from Earth in a Lagrange orbit that will remain stable for millions of years.
Here’s how JWST looks if yo come to visit Image from JWST/NASA
From the Wikipedia entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope designed to conduct infrared astronomy. As the largest telescope in space, it is equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, allowing it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.[9] This enables investigations across many fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars and the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.[10][11][12]
There’s plenty more on the site in terms of facts and figures but what impresses me the most is that the JWST can see back to a few hundred million years after the Big Bang when galaxies began to form. Cosmologists agree that the Big Bang that started our Universe happened 13.8 billion years ago. So, the JWST is bringing us ever nearer to the beginning. What if we see all the way back the that beginning and find a sign saying, “Kilroy was Here”?
Our solar system FYI is less than half that old, clocking in at around 5.5 billion years while the Earth formed 4.54 billion years ago, By 555 million years ago the ancestors of mammals appeared, some serving the Great Extinction that did away with the dinosaurs.
As this is a blog about the telescope, let’s go visual from here on, OK?
And here’s one more image, these are almost all galaxies million of light years distant. The brightest objects are much closer Stars.
Let’s go get some postcards!
