JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
- The James Webb Telescope will help astronomers not only look farther out into space, but will also take us back in time. With the new telescope, astronomers are hoping to study the very first stars and galaxies in the universe to understand its secrets.
- The new telescope is at least 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Telescope. And with its golden mirror, astronomers are hoping to catch glimpses of the universe like never before.
- Before the first starlight appeared in the universe, the whole universe was essentially covered in a primordial gas of sorts, which has led to this era being called the “cosmic dark ages”.
- Scientists believe that earliest starlight from the first galaxies helped lift this cosmic fog. But with help from the telescope, they hope to expand their understanding of this fog.
- While the Hubble telescope collects images in mostly ultraviolet (visible) light, James Webb will mostly take pictures in infrared, revealing more detail about the objects in those images unlike ever before.
- While Hubble was only 547 kilometres away from Earth, the James Webb Telescope will be millions of kilometres away from Earth – roughly four times the distance between the Earth and Moon.