Webb Telescope on the Pad

[TheGreenGoblin]

Astronomers say this will bring into view a glimpse of the cosmos never previously seen – dating to just 100m years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint <<to keep Atom Kraft happy>> that set in motion the expansion of the observable universe an estimated 13.8bn years ago.

The telescope is an international collaboration led by Nasa in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... into-focus

[Alisoncc]

The primary mirror wings are now fully deployed and latched into place, but the individual mirror segments remain in their launch configuration. This operation is a multi-day, multi-step activity to activate and move each of the 18 primary mirror segments and the secondary mirror from their stowed launch configuration to a deployed position ready for alignment.

The 18 primary mirror segments and secondary mirror are adjustable via six actuators that are attached to the back of each mirror. The primary mirror segments also have an additional actuator at its center that adjusts its curvature. The telescope's tertiary mirror remains stationary. The primary and secondary mirror segments will move a total of 12.5mm, in small increments, over the course of ~10 days to complete each segment's deployment.

After all individual mirror segment deployments are completed, the detailed optical mirror alignment process begins which is about a 3 month process. In parallel, as temperatures cool enough, instrument teams will turn on their instruments and begin each instrument's commissioning process.

[llondel]

Some aspects of the Standard model must surely be correct.

The Big Bang has always sounded like a load of bollocks.

I share your hope about the new 'scope shedding some light on what is actually what.

The Big Bang was caused by a malfunctioning Large Hadron Collider in a previous universe. It imploded in zero time through a small rent in the fabric of reality caused by the LHC and then exploded.

[TheGreenGoblin]

[Alisoncc]

Webby just one day off insertion into L2 orbit. Done 900k miles, with just 10k miles to go.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunc ... sWebb.html

[PHXPhlyer]

Webb telescope reaches milestone orbit beyond the moon

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/24/world/ja ... index.html

(CNN)The James Webb Space Telescope has reached its final destination, almost a month after launch.

Since lifting off from French Guiana on December 25, the telescope has unfurled its tennis court-size sunshield and unfolded a massive gold mirror that will help it study the universe in new ways and peer inside the atmosphere of exoplanets.
The telescope's point of observation is nearly a million miles away from Earth and beyond the moon itself. The space observatory experienced its final burn on Monday to enter this orbit called L2.
"Webb, welcome home!" said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement. "Congratulations to the team for all of their hard work ensuring Webb's safe arrival at L2 today. We're one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I can't wait to see Webb's first new views of the universe this summer!"
Although it doesn't sound like it would take almost a month for the telescope to reach orbit, Webb is unique.
"Think about throwing a ball straight up in the air, as hard as you can; it starts out very fast, but slows down as gravity pulls it back towards Earth, eventually stopping at its peak and then returning to the ground," said Karen Richon, Webb Flight Dynamics lead engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.
"Just like the ball, Webb is slowing down, and, if we allowed it, would eventually stop and fall back towards Earth."
If the Ariane 5 rocket, which lifted Webb into space, had been going even a little bit faster, the telescope may have overshot the orbit and exposed its mirror and instruments to the sun if it had to slam on the brakes.
"The Ariane 5 targeted Webb so accurately that our first and most critical burn was smaller than we had to plan and design for, leaving more fuel for an extended mission," Richon said.
A solar orbit that protects Webb from its heat
While the Hubble Space Telescope orbits Earth, Webb will actually orbit the sun.
Webb's orbit will keep the telescope in line with Earth as our planet orbits the sun. This alignment protects the telescope from the heat released by the sun, Earth and even the moon. It's imperative that the telescope stays cool because it will observe the universe in infrared light and detect the faintest signals from objects in our distant universe. Because infrared light can be detected as heat, the entire spacecraft needs to be shielded from bright sources of heat.

The spacecraft includes a five-layer sunshield to protect Webb's giant mirror and instruments from the sun's blistering rays because they need to be kept at a very frigid negative 370 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 223 degrees Celsius) to operate.
The orbit is called the second sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. Lagrange points are named for Joseph-Louis Lagrange. The 18th century mathematician solved the "three-body problem," or stable configurations that allow three bodies to orbit one another while remaining in the same relative positions.
The five solutions to the three-body problem are the five Lagrange points, where the gravitational pull of two masses equals the force needed for a small object, or spacecraft, to move along with them.
"Utilizing thrust every three weeks or so from small rocket engines aboard Webb will keep it orbiting L2, looping around it in a halo orbit once every six months," Richon said.
A grand view of the universe
The L2 point is ideal for Webb because the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth will basically ensure the spacecraft doesn't have to use much thrust to stay in orbit. And it will allow the telescope to have an unimpeded view of the universe, unlike Hubble, which moves in and out of Earth's shadow every 90 minutes.

The position of Webb also means continuous, stable communication is possible between teams on Earth and the space observatory using the Deep Space Network, composed of three massive antenna ground stations in Australia, Spain and California.
Now that Webb is in orbit, the spacecraft will spend the next five months calibrating its instruments. The first images captured by the observatory are expected this summer.

PP

[Alisoncc]

Webby is now in it's orbit, 907,530 miles from Erf. The next few months will be taken up with aligning the mirror segments and putting all the electronic gizmoes through their paces.

[PHXPhlyer]

With a space selfie, James Webb Telescope announces it is operational
Photos released Friday are the first from the Hubble successor, teasing a new era of deep-space study and discovery.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/n ... -rcna15725

A million miles from Earth, the James Webb Telescope has snapped its first selfie from orbit.

NASA released the self-portrait Friday, along with several mosaic images that the telescope captured while gazing at its first star. The images were taken as part of a monthslong process to assess the health of the observatory's various mirrors and instruments.

Nearly 50 days after Webb launched into space, the photos are early indicators that it is functioning as expected and is ready to begin its mission.

This “selfie” was created using a specialized pupil imaging lens inside of the NIRCam instrument that was designed to take images of the primary mirror segments instead of images of space.

"This amazing telescope has not only spread its wings, but it has now opened its eyes," Lee Feinberg, Webb's optical telescope element manager at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said Friday in a news briefing.

But before Webb can begin capturing jaw-dropping images of galaxies, star clusters and planets, mission controllers need to be sure that the observatory's huge primary mirror is properly aligned.

PP

[TheGreenGoblin]

The James Webb Telescope is still in alignment phase but it has sent this wonderful shot back as part of this process..
.

[Phewins]

With mirror alignment now completed, the Webb team will turn its attention to science instrument commissioning.

For each instrument, the Webb team will now conduct an extensive suite of calibrations and characterizations of the instruments using a variety of astronomical sources. We will measure the instruments’ throughput – how much of the light that enters the telescope reaches the detectors and is recorded. We will do an astrometric calibration for each instrument, measuring the small optical distortions in the instrument to map each pixel in the detector to the precise location on the sky that it will see. We will measure the sharpness of stellar images at each point in an instrument’s image to enable the optimal extraction of scientific information. We will demonstrate target acquisition for coronagraphy and spectroscopy, and test a few special types of observations, including targets within our Solar System, and time-series observations of exoplanet transits.

[Boac]

Thanks for the update. Do we know the time scale? I really look forward to the first 'real' pictures.

[PHXPhlyer]

Webb telescope’s sharp views of the universe will change astronomy

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/09/world/ja ... index.html

The James Webb Space telescope has the sharpest perspective on otherwise invisible light in the universe.

The highly anticipated first science images by the world’s premier space observatory aren’t expected until this summer. But recent test images captured by the telescope during its final commissioning phase are providing a glimpse of what’s to come.

“These are the sharpest infrared images ever taken by a space telescope,” said Michael McElwain, Webb observatory project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, during a news conference Monday.

Webb will be able to peer inside the atmospheres of exoplanets and observe some of the first galaxies created after the universe began by observing them through infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. The images were taken after the successful alignment of the telescope’s massive golden mirror segments. The test images show the clear, well-focused images that the observatory’s four instruments are capable of capturing.

Engineering images of sharply focused stars in the field of view of each instrument demonstrate that the telescope is fully aligned and in focus. For this test, Webb pointed at part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, providing a dense field of hundreds of thousands of stars across all the observatory's sensors. The sizes and positions of the images shown here depict the relative arrangement of each of Webb's instruments in the telescope's focal plane, each pointing at a slightly offset part of the sky relative to one another. Webb's three imaging instruments are NIRCam (images shown here at a wavelength of 2 microns), NIRISS (image shown here at 1.5 microns), and MIRI (shown at 7.7 microns, a longer wavelength revealing emission from interstellar clouds as well as starlight). NIRSpec is a spectrograph rather than imager but can take images, such as the 1.1 micron image shown here, for calibrations and target acquisition. The dark regions visible in parts of the NIRSpec data are due to structures of its microshutter array, which has several hundred thousand controllable shutters that can be opened or shut to select which light is sent into the spectrograph. Lastly, Webb's Fine Guidance Sensor tracks guide stars to point the observatory accurately and precisely; its two sensors are not generally used for scientific imaging but can take calibration images such as those shown here. This image data is used not just to assess image sharpness but also to precisely measure and calibrate subtle image distortions and alignments between sensors as part of Webb's overall instrument calibration process.
The James Webb Space Telescope is fully aligned and ready to observe the universe
But the most striking result came from a comparison of images taken of the same target by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument with the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera.

Spitzer, once one of the space telescopes belonging to NASA’s Great Observatories program, was the first to capture high-resolution of images of the universe in near and mid-infrared light.

Webb’s giant mirror and sensitive detectors can pick up even more detail – and allow more discoveries – than Spitzer could.

Scientists studying the two images of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighboring galaxy of the larger Milky Way, noted that Webb’s image reveals unprecedented details of interstellar gas between the stars.

“You can appreciate that the images from Webb are going to be better because we have 18 segments, every one of which is larger than the single segment, so to speak, that formed the Spitzer telescope’s mirror,” said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera and regents professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, during the news conference.

“But it’s not until you actually see the kind of image that it delivers that you really internalize and go, ‘Wow, just think of what we’re going to learn.’ Spitzer taught us a lot. This is like a whole new world.”

Nearing the starting line
Webb is now in the final phase of preparation before it will be ready to begin conducting science observations.

“I would call this the homestretch,” McElwain said. “We’ve had about 1,000 activities planned for commissioning, and there are only about 200 activities left to complete.”

We have some of the most beautiful B-roll footage you've ever seen! Shown here, the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror illuminated in a dark cleanroom.


This $10 billion space telescope will reveal the secrets of the universe
Webb’s instruments are going through their final checkouts and calibrations as the telescope’s team on the ground assesses the performance of each one to ensure they are ready to properly collect data.

Every instrument has about four or five science modes each that needs to meet specific criteria. One of Webb’s special modes includes moving target tracking, which is especially helpful for scientists who want to study objects on the icy reaches of our solar system as they orbit the sun.

“When this phase is completed, we’ll be ready to turn the science instruments loose on the universe,” McElwain said.

The first images
Webb’s first images of the universe, called the early release observations, or EROs, are expected to come out in mid-July, said Klaus Pontoppidan, Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, during the press conference. A more precise date will be shared later, he said.


A beginner's guide to stargazing (CNN Underscored)
These first “spectacular color images” will show that Webb is fully operational and a celebratory “beginning of many years of science,” Pontoppidan said.

The exact targets of Webb for these first images haven’t been revealed because the telescope team doesn’t want to spoil the surprise. And those targets could change as the team gets closer to capturing images.

The first images will resemble what we’re used to seeing from the Hubble Space Telescope in terms of aesthetic quality, Pontoppidan said.

“Astronomy is not going to be the same again once we see what (Webb) can do with these first observations,” said Christopher Evans, Webb project scientist at the European Space Agency, during the news conference.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Webb telescope’s massive mirror hit by micrometeoroid

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/08/world/we ... index.html

One of the 18 golden segments of the James Webb Space Telescope’s giant mirror was hit by a micrometeoroid in May, according to an update from NASA. But don’t worry – the space observatory is still on track to share its first high-resolution, full-color images on July 12.

A micrometeoroid is a particle in space that is smaller than a grain of sand. Earth’s atmosphere is hit by millions of meteoroids and micrometeoroids on a regular basis, but most are vaporized when they hit the atmosphere, according to NASA.

But spacecraft don’t have a protective bubble of atmosphere around them, so it’s almost impossible to avoid these impacts.

The Webb telescope sustained such an impact between May 23 and 25, but “the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect in the data,” according to the Webb team.

The team is continuing to analyze and assess what happened and how it may affect the telescope’s performance. It’s also likely the first of many such experiences that Webb will have over its time in space.

Preparing for impact
When the telescope and its massive mirror were being built and tested on Earth, engineers made sure that the mirror could survive the micrometeoroid environment the spacecraft would experience in its orbit about a million miles from Earth at a point called L2, where dust particles are accelerated to extreme velocities.

Webb was put through its paces while on Earth, and the team used both simulations and test impacts on mirror samples to understand what it would face.

The May impact event was larger than anything the team tested or would have been able to model while Webb was still on the ground.


Webb telescope's sharp views of the universe will change astronomy
“We always knew that Webb would have to weather the space environment, which includes harsh ultraviolet light and charged particles from the Sun, cosmic rays from exotic sources in the galaxy, and occasional strikes by micrometeoroids within our solar system,” said Paul Geithner, technical deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.

“We designed and built Webb with performance margin – optical, thermal, electrical, mechanical – to ensure it can perform its ambitious science mission even after many years in space.”

Fortunately, each hexagonal mirror segment is fully adjustable, and the impacted segment has already been adjusted to lessen some of the distortion. This is something engineers can continue to do in the future as they monitor Webb’s mirror for any signs of degradation in the space environment.

Webb’s flight team already turns the spacecraft’s mirror away from known events, like meteor showers, to protect the telescope’s optics. But this impact, which wasn’t part of a meteor shower, was unforeseen and “an unavoidable chance event,” according to NASA.

“As a result of this impact, a specialized team of engineers has been formed to look at ways to mitigate the effects of further micrometeoroid hits of this scale,” according to a release from the agency.

Looking ahead
The Webb team will work closely with micrometeoroid prediction experts at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. And Webb will be able to help NASA scientists learn more about the dust environment of the solar system at this orbit point, which can assist with preparing for future missions.

Engineering images of sharply focused stars in the field of view of each instrument demonstrate that the telescope is fully aligned and in focus. For this test, Webb pointed at part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, providing a dense field of hundreds of thousands of stars across all the observatory's sensors. The sizes and positions of the images shown here depict the relative arrangement of each of Webb's instruments in the telescope's focal plane, each pointing at a slightly offset part of the sky relative to one another. Webb's three imaging instruments are NIRCam (images shown here at a wavelength of 2 microns), NIRISS (image shown here at 1.5 microns), and MIRI (shown at 7.7 microns, a longer wavelength revealing emission from interstellar clouds as well as starlight). NIRSpec is a spectrograph rather than imager but can take images, such as the 1.1 micron image shown here, for calibrations and target acquisition. The dark regions visible in parts of the NIRSpec data are due to structures of its microshutter array, which has several hundred thousand controllable shutters that can be opened or shut to select which light is sent into the spectrograph. Lastly, Webb's Fine Guidance Sensor tracks guide stars to point the observatory accurately and precisely; its two sensors are not generally used for scientific imaging but can take calibration images such as those shown here. This image data is used not just to assess image sharpness but also to precisely measure and calibrate subtle image distortions and alignments between sensors as part of Webb's overall instrument calibration process.
The James Webb Space Telescope is fully aligned and ready to observe the universe
“With Webb’s mirrors exposed to space, we expected that occasional micrometeoroid impacts would gracefully degrade telescope performance over time,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA Goddard, in a statement.

“Since launch, we have had four smaller measurable micrometeoroid strikes that were consistent with expectations and this one more recently that is larger than our degradation predictions assumed. We will use this flight data to update our analysis of performance over time and also develop operational approaches to assure we maximize the imaging performance of Webb to the best extent possible for many years to come.”

Webb has already exceeded expectations since launching in December, and the telescope is preparing for the beginning of science operations.

Webb will be able to peer inside the atmospheres of exoplanets and observe some of the first galaxies created after the universe began by observing them through infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.

PP

[Alisoncc]

Commissioning of Webbies instruments almost complete. Only "coronagraphy" to go.

[PHXPhlyer]

NASA shares teaser for Webb telescope’s first image release

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/world/ja ... index.html

Get ready to see some awe-inspiring views of the universe as we’ve never seen it before.

The James Webb Space Telescope will release its first high-resolution color images on July 12, one of which “is the deepest image of our universe that has ever been taken,” according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The space observatory, which launched in December, will be able to peer inside the atmospheres of exoplanets and observe some of the first galaxies created after the universe began by viewing them through infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.

We have some of the most beautiful B-roll footage you've ever seen! Shown here, the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror illuminated in a dark cleanroom.


'Deepest image of our universe' ever taken by Webb Telescope will be revealed in July
The first image release will highlight Webb’s science capabilities as well as the ability of its massive golden mirror and science instruments to produce spectacular images.

The first five cosmic targets of Webb were shared by NASA on Friday, providing a teaser for what we can expect to see in the image release. The targets were selected by an international committee, including members from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

One of the targets is the Carina Nebula, located 7,600 light-years away. This stellar nursery, where stars are born, is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky and is home to many stars much more massive than our sun.

Additionally, the first full-color spectrum of an exoplanet, known as WASP-96b, will be shared on Tuesday. The spectrum will include different wavelengths of light that could reveal new information about the planet located 1,150 light-years from Earth, such as whether it has an atmosphere. The giant gas planet, which was discovered in 2014 and has half the mass of Jupiter, completes an orbit around its star every 3.4 days.


The third target is the Southern Ring Nebula, also called the “Eight-Burst,” which is 2,000 light-years away from Earth. This large planetary nebula includes an expanding cloud of gas around a dying star.

Stephan’s Quintet, also expected in the release, will reveal the way galaxies interact with one another. This compact galaxy group, first discovered in 1787, is located 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. Four of the five galaxies in the group “are locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters,” according to a NASA statement.

Artist conception of the James Webb Space Telescope, dating to 2019.


Webb telescope's massive mirror hit by micrometeoroid
The final target is SMACS 0723, where a massive group of galaxy clusters act as a magnifying glass for the objects behind them. Called gravitational lensing, this will create Webb’s first deep field view of incredibly old and distant, faint galaxies. It will be the deepest humans have ever looked into the universe.

The initial goal for the telescope was to see the first stars and galaxies of the universe, essentially watching “the universe turn the lights on for the first time,” said Eric Smith, Webb program scientist and NASA Astrophysics Division chief scientist.

Smith has worked on Webb since the project began in the mid-1990s.

“The James Webb Space Telescope will give us a fresh and powerful set of eyes to examine our universe,” Smith wrote in an update. “The world is about to be new again.”

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

The first full-color James Webb Space Telescope photo is here
Dubbed “Webb’s First Deep Field,” it is the first full-color image from the $10 billion observatory that launched into space last year.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/j ... -rcna37584

It's just a "speck of the universe."

The first image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope offered humanity a stunning new view of the universe on Monday — a first-of-its-kind infrared image so distant in the cosmos that it shows stars and galaxies as they appeared 13 billion years ago.

President Joe Biden revealed the new image Monday at the White House alongside Vice President Kamala Harris and NASA officials. Dubbed "Webb's First Deep Field," it is the first full-color image from the $10 billion observatory that launched into space last year, and the highest-resolution infrared view of the universe yet captured.

Against the blackness of space, Webb's First Deep Field shows a kaleidoscope of galaxies — some appearing as luminous points while others look "bent" and streaky, warped by gravity on their long journey to Earth.

It's a photo that offers humanity a fresh perspective on the mind-bending scale of the universe.
“If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm’s length, that is the part of the universe that you’re seeing,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Just one little speck of the universe.”

The image, reminiscent of the Hubble Deep Fields that first stunned scientists with photos of ancient and seemingly infinite galaxies, shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago, according to NASA. The mass of the galaxy cluster is magnifying and distorting far more distant objects behind it — a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

The University of California Santa Cruz made the image available in a zoomable format, allowing people to hone in on individual galaxies for a closer look.

The Webb telescope's infrared eyes have pulled these normally faint and distant objects into sharp focus, providing a view of some never-before-seen galaxies and star clusters, NASA officials said. The oldest light from some of these objects date back roughly 13 billion years ago, in the early days of the universe.

What were once blips to Hubble are now galaxies to Webb.
"These images are going to remind the world that America can do big things, and to remind the American people, especially our children, that there's nothing beyond our capacity," Biden said shortly before the image was revealed.

In a news briefing last month to preview the image, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said it will likely represent a turning point in humanity's understanding of the cosmos.

"It's not an image. It's a new worldview," Zurbuchen said at the time.

The image offers a glimpse of the universe as it was 13 billion years ago. Telescopes essentially function as time machines because it takes time for light to travel through space.

As such, light that reaches the Webb telescope from the most distant galaxies in the universe does not show present conditions but rather provide insights into how the universe was billions of years ago.

Scientists have said that the James Webb Space Telescope could unlock mysteries from as far back as 100 million years after the Big Bang.

The Webb observatory's infrared “eyes” allow it to see distant stars and galaxies beyond the range of human sight and other telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, that see primarily visible light.

Infrared instruments are better suited for trying to detect the universe’s earliest stars and galaxies because the longer wavelengths of infrared light can pierce through dust and gas that might otherwise obscure some celestial objects. Since the universe is also expanding, light from the earliest stars and galaxies is stretched, shifting into longer infrared wavelengths undetectable by Hubble or the human eye.

In a separate event on Tuesday, NASA will release more images from the Webb telescope, including the observatory's first spectrum of an exoplanet, showing light emitted at different wavelengths from a planet in another star system. These types of observations could help scientists search for signs of life beyond Earth.

The James Webb Space Telescope is a collaboration among NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. The tennis court-sized observatory is designed to study the early days after the Big Bang and help astronomers piece together how the modern universe came to be.

PP

[Boac]

Stunning! Quite stunning.

[PHXPhlyer]

It's a photo that offers humanity a fresh perspective on the mind-bending scale of the universe.
“If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm’s length, that is the part of the universe that you’re seeing,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Just one little speck of the universe.”

Quite a narrow field of view.
How many photos would it take to encompass a full spherical view?

PP

[Wodrick]

They are of course not real, but photoshopped

[G-CPTN]

the images that the JWST is capturing are glimpses of the processes that formed stars and planets long before our own came into existence.

If we stick around, maybe we will see ourselves being created?