The James Webb Space Telescope was dominating the headlines this week, so I decided to write about its origin story, the questions it will help us answer, and the design + engineering of the spacecraft. I wrote a high-level summary below, but I recommend reading the full piece I wrote about it here: https://year2049.substack.com/p/-the-james-webb-space-telescope
🌌 Origin story
In 1989, a few months before Hubble’s launch, scientists gathered for a workshop to discuss its successor, nicknamed the “Next Generation Telescope”. They agreed that it had to observe the universe in infrared light for two reasons:
• Observing the early stars and galaxies located billions of lightyears away because their light has been redshifted
• Looking behind clouds of dust that block visible light
🎯 Mission Goals
Studying the early universe
Studying galaxies and their evolution over time
Observing how stars and planetary systems form
Observing other planets and measuring their chemical and physical properties
🔭 Spacecraft
Three main components to know about:
Mirrors: A triple-mirror system that reflects infrared and can be programmed to point in different directions
Science Instruments: 4 instruments that offer a mix of imaging and spectrography capabilities for near-infrared and mid-infrared ranges
Sunshield: 5 kite-shaped and tennis court-sized layers that keep JWST shielded from the Sun and Earth's heat because it needs to capture heat signatures of objects that are extremely far away.
Read more 👇
What I wrote is just high-level overview, but I highly recommend reading the full piece I wrote (7 mins reading time) about JWST: https://year2049.substack.com/p/-the-james-webb-space-telescope