Hubble and Webb
Outer Space
It might seem strange to list “Outer Space” as a location, but NASA’s and ESA’s renderings of space images, like the Eagle Nebula, echo the color palettes of the best photographs of natural landscapes here on Earth, so we feel like we know these vistas, that we have a connection. SEARCHING was fortunate that early images from the James Webb Space Telescope were released in time to be included in part 2, even if a new and record-setting “most distant galaxy” required a rewrite and re-edit! Fortunately, we had asked astronomer Pascal Oesch about Webb’s amazing capabilities before it launched and were ready and waiting when these spectacular new images became available.
Read More About Hubble and Webb
The Hubble and Webb Telescopes
Written By Alan Lightman
The Hubble Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope in space for many years, was launched in 1990 and remains in operation. It is named after the great American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who in 1929 found evidence for the expansion of the universe, arguably the most important astronomical discovery of all time. Above the atmosphere, which blurs images, telescopes in space can see more clearly than on Earth. The resolving power of any telescope increases with the lens’s or mirror’s diameter. Hubble has a mirror 7 feet 10 inches in diameter and instruments that can see visible light, ultraviolent, and near-infrared.
In 1998, Hubble found evidence that the universe’s expansion was accelerating. That is, galaxies are moving away from each other at increasing speed. This acceleration is thought to be caused by a new kind of energy called “dark energy,” which causes a repulsive force rather than the usual attractive force of gravity. Hubble has also accurately measured the universe’s rate of expansion, leading to an estimated 13.7 billion years for the universe’s age (time since the Big Bang). By measuring the velocities of stars near the centers of galaxies, Hubble has determined that many, if not most, galaxies harbor a massive black hole at their centers. Hubble has also measured the distance to some of the most distant galaxies known, including GN-z11, at 32 billion light years from earth. (Because of the universe’s expansion, an object can be further away than the distance light can travel since the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.)
At 7:20 am EST on Christmas day 2021, a successor to Hubble was launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. It’s called the James Webb Space Telescope, named after an Administrator of NASA in the 1960s. Twenty-seven minutes after launch, the telescope was ejected from the rocket’s upper stage. Three minutes later, the solar array unfolded. Twelve days after launch, the primary mirror was deployed. The telescope is orbiting the sun, about a million miles from Earth, at a particular point where the Sun’s and Earth’s gravity combine to cause the satellite to stay above a fixed point on the Earth as both satellite and Earth orbit the Sun. With a mirror almost three times wider, JWST can see objects nearly nine times fainter than Hubble, allowing us to peer further into space.
Already, Webb has found galaxies even more distant than GN-z11 and produced exceptionally clear images of closer astronomical objects. One finding is that there are many more disk-shaped galaxies than previously thought. Such knowledge will impact our understanding of how galaxies form. Webb has also found the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide in a planet’s atmosphere beyond the solar system, possibly an indication of life forms on the planet below.
RIGHT: GLASS galaxy seen by Webb. Credits: P. van Dokkum (Yale University), and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), Naidu et al, P. Oesch, T. Treu, GLASS-JWST, NASA/CSA/ESA/STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope
At 7:20am EST Christmas day 2021, a successor to Hubble was launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. It’s called the James Webb Space Telescope, named after the Administrator of NASA in the 1960s. Twenty seven minutes after launch, the telescope was ejected from the upper stage of the rocket. Three minutes later, the solar array unfolded. Twelve days after launch, the primary mirror was deployed. The telescope is orbiting the sun, about a million miles from Earth, at a particular point where the gravity of the Sun and the gravity of the Earth combine to cause the satellite to stay above a fixed point on the Earth as both satellite and Earth orbit the Sun. With a mirror almost three times wider, JWST will be able to see objects almost nine times fainter than Hubble, allowing us to peer even further into space.
Already, Webb has found galaxies even more distant than GN-z11 and produced exceptionally clear images of closer astronomical objects. One finding is that there are many more disk-shaped galaxies than previously thought. Such knowledge will impact our understanding of how galaxies form. Webb has also found the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet beyond the solar system, possibly an indication of life forms on the planet below.
