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First deep space images from James Webb Space Telescope released
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July 15, 2022
Original URL: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/First_deep_space_images_from_James_Webb_Space_Telescope_released
launch vehicle.
On Monday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and US President Joe Biden
presented the first image (see left) obtained by the Near-Infrared
Camera (NIRCam), an instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope.
The image, named Webb's First Deep Field, shows thousands of galaxies in
the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster, about 4.6 billion light-years away from
Earth. However, the area shown by the image is only a small portion of
the Southern Hemisphere sky. The blended image (at left) resulted from
the stitching together of numerous smaller images obtained at multiple
wavelengths with far greater depth than achieved by the Hubble Space
Telescope, the predecessor to James Webb.
The telescope entered its current orbit around the L2
Lagrange point from January 24, about from Earth, on the opposite side
of Earth from the Sun. This followed a month-long journey that began in
late December 2021, following years of delays and several cost overruns.
For its expected five- to ten-year service life, it is intended to study
the most distant, and therefore the earliest galaxies formed after the
Big Bang.
During its journey, dubbed "30 days of terror" by ''Sky & Telescope'',
the telescope successfully unfurled its wide mirror, deployed its
sunshield and cooled down to below 50 degrees Kelvin as it traveled to
the L2 Lagrange point.
L2 is a secure location for spacecraft where the
gravitational pull of the Sun and the Earth is balanced. Full scientific
operations will involve thirteen teams of scientists. The primary
mission is to find the most distant and earliest galaxies formed after
the Big Bang to help study the origins of the Universe. The nominal
mission time is five years, with a goal of ten. The location of its
orbit is very different to the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits much
closer to Earth. James Webb's instruments face away from the Sun, giving
a greater clarity to the images it will obtain compared to Hubble.
An Ariane 5 launch vehicle carried the telescope to space on December 25
from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, after arriving at the
launch site in October. The launch date was delayed by a week due to
unfavorable weather.
The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
began project development in 1996, planning for a launch in 2007 at a
cost of USD550 million. After NASA contracted Northrop Grumman to build
the telescope, mission managers estimated a 2010 launch would cost
between one and 3.5 billion USD. Redesigns to reduce technical
requirements pushed launch plans to 2013 for an estimated cost of USD4.5
billion. The US Congress ordered a project review in 2010 which delayed
the launch again to 2015.
Due to an estimated cost of USD6.5 billion, the United States House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related
Agencies proposed canceling the telescope altogether in 2011. After a
plan was made for a 2018 launch at a cost of USD8.8 billion, technical
errors found in the telescope and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic
pushed the launch date to 2021.
== Related news ==
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== Sources ==
* https://images.nasa.gov/details-White_House_Briefing_to_Unveil_Imagery_from_James_Webb_Space_Telescope_July_11_2022
* http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet
* https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/07/Webb_s_first_deep_field
* https://phys.org/news/2022-01-astronomers-james-webb-space-telescope.html
* https://www.space.com/james-webb-arrives-destination-l2
* https://nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-webb-telescope-launches-to-see-first-galaxies-distant-worlds
* https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/the-james-webb-space-telescope-is-headed-to-space
* https://www.npr.org/2021/12/22/1066377182/why-some-astronomers-once-feared-nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-would-never-la
* https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/27/17509610/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-delay-2021-review
* https://www.universetoday.com/87265/proposed-nasa-budget-bill-would-cancel-james-webb-space-telescope
* https://www.space.com/12187-nasa-budget-bill-cancels-space-telescope-house.html
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