What the giant James Webb telescope will see that Hubble can't
Astronomers like Christine Chen are thrilled about the looming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.
The $10 billion instrument, half the size of a 737 airplane and replete with gold-coated mirrors, will orbit 1 million miles from Earth and peer into places humanity hasn't seen before. This includes some of the first stars ever born, the most distant galaxies, and curious planets in the cosmos.
"It's really cool," marveled Chen, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, an organization that will run the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST.
The instrument's deeply-anticipated launch is currently set for Dec. 18, 2021, though in recent months the telescope has often been in the news for reasons unrelated to its scientific endeavors. NASA named the remarkable instrument after James Webb, NASA's leader in the 1960s who oversaw the agency during a time when the federal government persecuted and fired LGBTQ employees from NASA and other departments. It was a shameful time in American history called the "Lavender Scare." For now, NASA said it will keep the JWST label after finding no evidence about Webb that "warrants changing the name."
JWST, originally dubbed the "Next Generation Space Telescope" in the 1990s, will join the legendary Hubble Space Telescope in capturing clear views of the universe from space. Hubble is a scientific treasure. Over the three decades it's orbited 340 miles above Earth, Hubble has provided unprecedented, brilliant views of the cosmos, galaxies, and planets. Yet JWST is not a replacement for the aging Hubble. JWST is a successor, with different, and advanced, abilities.
https://mashable.com/article/james-webb-space-telescope-hubble-science
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This should help astronomers and cosmetologists and, in the long run, theorists to tell us more about our universe.
