The United States Space Agency (NASA) has released the first full-color photos of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JSWT), which is the first time in human history to capture the clearest and most distant photos of star clusters in the universe. President Joe Biden ( Joe Biden ) said even more boldly: These images will remind the world that the United States can do great things. Why is this space telescope , which looks like an egg waffle, attracting attention from all walks of life? How is its performance and function different from the previous Hubble telescope ?
NASA said that the first photo, named Webb 's first deep space, is the first time in human history to capture a high-resolution image of the deep space universe, showing the vast Milky Way mysteries, as well as the huge investment in the past 30 years. Scientific research results. The Webb Space Telescope captured the "SMACS 0723" star cluster that was born 4.6 billion years ago. It then used the gravitational lensing effect of the star cluster to refract light from more distant background galaxies, which can be traced back to more than 13 billion years ago. It is about 800 million years younger than the "Big Bang" of the universe. In addition, NASA released a series of images returned by the Webb telescope through an online live broadcast yesterday.
Biden, who attended the public photo event, said that this telescope is one of mankind's great engineering achievements. Before the photo was exhibited, Biden said that this will be a new window to understand the history of the universe. Today we will see the first light shining through that window, which is light from other worlds and surrounding other stars. This surprised me." He emphasized: "These images will remind the world that the United States can do great things, and will also remind Americans, especially our children and grandchildren, that nothing is beyond our capabilities.
html Building the Webb Space Telescope with tens of billions of dollars in 2020 is a mission of NASA The infrared space telescope jointly developed by the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency has a cost of approximately US$10 billion (approximately HK$78.5 billion) and is the most powerful space telescope in the world to date. The project was originally planned to cost 5. Billion US dollars and was launched in 2007. However, due to various reasons, the plan was seriously overrun and the launch time was delayed several times. It was finally planned and developed in 2005, built in 2011, and launched on December 25 last year. , launched a ten-year cosmic observation plan.
It is reported that the concept of the Webb Space Telescope was first mentioned at a scientific seminar in 1989. In September 2002, it was decided to name it after Webb in memory of the leader of Apollo. Nicole Straughn, deputy chief scientist for Webb Telescope Engineering and the second NASA administrator for the Moon Project, said: "Of course we can't guarantee that we will find signs of life, but we can say without exaggeration that this telescope is definitely the best candidate for our search in the Milky Way .
This space telescope weighs 7 tons, has a main mirror with a diameter of 6.5 meters, and is composed of 18 huge hexagonal sub-mirrors made of the rare metal beryllium; this diameter is also the largest in the universe. The minimum requirement for the first ray of explosion . Its main mirror area is more than five times that of the Hubble Space Telescope, and its sunshield area is equivalent to a tennis court. Due to its huge size, the Webb Telescope is launched in a folded state. In addition to being lighter,
is also coated with a very thin layer of gold in order to enhance reflected light. The thickness is only 120 nanometers, which is equivalent to one-200th of the thickness of a human hair. This coating alone is It took engineers six years. There are also 7 motors installed behind each lens so that the lens can be adjusted with 10 nanometer precision. The telescope is not only a spliced type, but also a folding type. It must be installed like a folding umbrella. Inside the launch rocket, it needs to wait until it reaches the orbit before opening it, which means that the telescope needs to be able to experience the bumps of the rocket launch, and it must also open the five-layer sun visor under the guidance of the laser. Such requirements and difficulties are not simple at all.
What's the difference between the Boer Space Telescope and the Boer Space Telescope? Therefore, the scientific community is excited about the mysteries of the universe it may discover.The Webb Space Telescope is regarded as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and is designed to explore the universe more deeply, including greatly improving mankind's understanding of the earliest galaxies that formed the universe after the Big Bang.
However, there are actually many differences between the two. First of all, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990, so it is a scientific product before the 1980s. On the contrary, the Webb represents the scientific peak of the 21st century and uses the most advanced technology today.
The Hubble Space Telescope (Hubble Space Telescope, HST) has an aperture of only 2.4 meters and a focusing area of only 4.3 square meters, which is far less than Webb's 25 square meters. At its maximum, it can see the scene of the universe 480 million years after the Big Bang, while Webb can at least observe the scene of the universe 200 million years after its birth. Another difference is that the Webb's main body is not cylindrical like the and Hubble , but a seat-like visor is unfolded under the main mirror. This means that both the light-condensing part and the mirror part are exposed, so the observation range is very wide. Measuring solely from the observation capabilities in the infrared band, the Webb Telescope is 16 times more powerful than the Hubble Telescope.
also has different running tracks. Hubble is only 600 kilometers away from the surface, while Webb is 1.5 million kilometers away from the earth in deep space. This position always faces away from the earth, and the gravitational field is relatively stable and is not affected by dust and garbage in low-Earth orbit. It has a super good observation position and field of view.
The final difference is that because Hubble basically revolves around the Earth at a close distance, astronauts can be sent to repair it if it encounters a fault or damage; while Webb's distance is equivalent to four times the distance between the Earth and the moon, , and its back is It is difficult to send personnel to repair the earth, so the technology used must be sufficiently advanced, mature, and perfect to reduce the accidental probability of scrapping.
However, the Webb and Hubble space telescopes are not in a competitive relationship, but rather share their knowledge and work together to explore the unknown universe. The Webb Space Telescope has two main science missions that will account for more than half of its observing time. The first is to explore the early stages of the history of the universe, looking back hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. Astronomers hope to use Webb to understand how stars and galaxies first formed and how they evolve over time. Another major mission is to discover planets outside the solar system and study whether life may exist by analyzing the atmospheres of these planetary bodies.
In addition, the scientific community hopes that Webb will help solve the mystery of the Big Bang that has puzzled mankind to this day. There is also the mystery of dark matter . Since dark matter does not interact with any electromagnetic waves and only affects other matter through gravity, we currently know very little about it. Since the special mirror of the Webb telescope is more sensitive to light, it can be used to search for traces of dark matter.
If everything goes according to plan, Webber should play an extremely important role in mankind's deeper understanding of the mysteries of the universe in the next ten years. It may enable mankind to have a more thorough understanding of the universe, and there may also be a chance to discover habitability beyond the earth. of stars.
