Video: Everything you need to know about the James Webb Space Telescope ahead of its launch: Digital Photography Review

After nearly 30 years of work, James Webb . Space Telescope about to be ready to take off. The successor to the famous Hubble telescope was originally scheduled to launch on December 22, although that launch was delayed no earlier than December 24. When the space telescope launches the Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, a new era of astronomy will begin.

Long time DPReview reader, Dr. Kevin Hainline, and Smile Mountain teamed up to make a video of the James Webb Space Telescope, outlining the telescope’s impressive features and technology, including the onboard imaging equipment. Hainline is a professor at the University of Arizona and a member of the NIRCam science team of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

In Hainline’s entertaining and informative video, he discusses what makes the James Webb Space Telescope special. Compared to the Hubble Space Telescope, which is itself an impressively designed space telescope that has produced many excellent images of deep space, JWST’s larger mirror can capture a large amount of light. sixfold.

There are four separate cameras on the JWST. The cameras are NIRCam, which Dr. Hainline works on, NIRSpec, NIRISS and MIRI. Light travels through space and hits the main mirror of the telescope. It is then reflected onto a smaller secondary mirror and then into Rear optics, the subsystem, and finally the camera. By the way, JWST has been designed to see infrared light, that’s why its main mirror is gold, because gold reflects infrared light better.

There is much to be learned about celestial bodies and space by observing in infrared light. You can also see through space dust using infrared light, which is important when making observations. The most distant galaxies can only be seen in infrared light because optical light undergoes a redshift as the universe expands. Hubble can’t see as many infrared wavelengths as JWST can, so the new telescope will be able to see much farther. However, JWST does not replace Hubble, the two space telescopes will work together.

Dr. Hainline was one of the scientists who worked on the design of JWST’s NIRCam. It was a challenging proposition, and the camera’s design reflects the challenge by combining a sophisticated design and interesting components, including mercury cadmium. It’s a crystal made using molecular beam epitaxial which, as Dr Hainline says, is a fancy way of saying that the team needed to grow the crystals. The crystals can convert infrared light into electricity, allowing the infrared light collected by the JWST to be converted into a readable digital signal.

As Dr Hainline’s video says, ‘The James Webb Space Telescope is about to change astronomy. Get ready to explore. ‘ We’re excited as JWST launches and captures its first quality science images, which will be at the end of its third month in space. Because it covers longer wavelengths of light than Hubble, the more sensitive JWST will be able to look further back in time, and we are poised to learn a lot about the early universe and how stars and planets formed. become today.

All images provided by NASA/ESA/CSA ASC