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Those initial results could then guide the rest of the world’s astronomers as they clamor to use Webb before it is gone. Already intimate with what the telescope can do and given first picks of where to point it, these research teams are expected to generate some of Webb’s most transformative discoveries. Each member of this elite cadre is guaranteed a small but significant portion of Webb’s total time, and much of the telescope’s first year of observations (called “Cycle 1”) is dedicated to fulfilling that obligation.
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The hundreds of researchers who have spent decades developing the telescope's hardware, software and core scientific objectives will be among the first to scale that learning curve. We want to make that curve as quick and easy to climb as possible.” “But there will be a steep learning curve. “Webb has a finite lifetime, and represents huge intellectual, financial and technological investments, so we need to hit the ground running to get its science flowing,” says Ken Sembach, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Credit: STScI and NASA Climbing Webb’s Learning Curve Designed to operate at infrared wavelengths, Webb’s four science instruments will make breakthrough observations of ancient galaxies, newborn stars and planets orbiting other suns while also studying multitudes of objects within our own solar system.
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An artist’s rendition of the James Webb Space Telescope ( center) and its diverse scientific capabilities (s urrounding hexagons). For astronomers hoping to squeeze Hubble-like levels of discovery out of Webb’s limited life, every moment of the telescope’s time will be precious. It is intended to last at minimum five years-perhaps even 10, if all goes according to plan. Webb, however, will be stationed in deep space, past the orbit of the moon, out of reach of easy servicing.
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Thanks to a series of refurbishing missions to its post in low Earth orbit, Hubble is approaching its fourth decade of operations, a life span that has helped make it arguably the most productive and revolutionary scientific instrument in human history. Longevity is an even greater difference between Hubble and Webb. With them it will peer through the creaking, dusty cosmic eons to study much that astronomers using Hubble and other telescopes have barely begun to glimpse: the universe’s very first galaxies, nascent stars and planets in mid-creation in nebulous wombs, the atmospheres of worlds both within and beyond our solar system. Webb’s infrared eyes make it equal parts x-ray scanner, mass spectrometer and time machine.
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It is also the brightest light we have from the most distant (and oldest) stars because their otherwise-visible light arrives stretched out to longer, redder wavelengths by more than 13 billion years of the universe’s expansion. At some wavelengths, infrared light can pass through dust almost unscathed, like a sunbeam through a windowpane at others, it mingles with matter to carry away imprints of its atomic and molecular structure. Unlike its famous predecessor the Hubble Space Telescope, which mostly was set up to gather visible and ultraviolet light, Webb is optimized to view the cosmos in infrared. Built in cooperation with the European and Canadian space agencies, Webb is NASA’s biggest, costliest and most powerful observatory yet, boasting a 6.5-meter primary mirror that will be the largest ever flown in space. Astronomers are scrambling to keep a rapidly approaching date with destiny-a chance to gaze farther than ever before into the universe’s hidden depths.Īfter decades of development, the nearly $9-billion James Webb Space Telescope is set for launch from French Guiana in spring 2019.