The Hubble is a hard act to follow - James Webb Space Telescope

[Rick]

Since it was launched in 1990, the telescope has become one of the most important instruments in the history of astronomy, making critical discoveries that have vastly enriched our understanding of the cosmos.

John Mather is only too aware of this legacy. He is senior project scientist on Hubble's designated successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6254991.stm

[Rick]

After a rather difficult week, some good news for NASA: its engineers have just finished making the mirror that will be the eye of its next space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). All that remains is for it to be ground and polished.

The telescope will be used, as Hubble was and still is, to examine the farthest reaches of the universe. But its increased sensitivity, due to its larger mirror, means it will be able to see the first galaxies that formed after the big bang.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/09/telescope_mirror/

Yet more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6340703.stm

JWST: http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

[Rick]

The US space agency Nasa has unveiled a model of a space telescope that scientists say will be able to see to the farthest reaches of the Universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is intended to replace the ageing Hubble telescope.

It will be larger than its predecessor, sit farther from Earth and have a giant mirror to enable it to see more.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6645179.stm
And: http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

[mickw]

Europe shipped one of its big contributions to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on Tuesday.

The Mid Infra-Red Instrument (Miri) was flown out of London Heathrow on a British Airways jet, bound for Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center.

JWST will be the successor to Hubble, and aims to track down the very first stars to shine in the Universe.

Miri, built by a pan-European consortium led from the UK, will play a central role in that endeavour.

More:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18253444

[Rick]

Two Cameras Offer View of Webb Telescope in Clean Room

Members of the public can track the progress of the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope inside a NASA clean room, where the recently delivered Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) will be integrated into the science instrument payload. Two cameras show the giant clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Online screen shots from the two clean-room cameras, affectionally dubbed "Webb-cams," are updated every minute.

Developed by a consortium of 10 European institutions and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and delivered by the European Space Agency, MIRI is the first Webb telescope instrument to be completed.

The clean room is generally occupied Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. PDT (8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EDT).

The Webb-cams can be seen online at: http://jwst.nasa.gov/webcam.html

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-174

[Rick]

NASA's Webb Space Telescope Receives First Mirror Installation

NASA has successfully installed the first of 18 flight mirrors onto the James Webb Space Telescope, beginning a critical piece of the observatory's construction.

In the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland this week, the engineering team used a robot arm to lift and lower the hexagonal-shaped segment that measures just over 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) across and weighs approximately 88 pounds (40 kilograms). After being pieced together, the 18 primary mirror segments will work together as one large 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) mirror. The full installation is expected to be complete early next year.

"The James Webb Space Telescope will be the premier astronomical observatory of the next decade," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This first-mirror installation milestone symbolizes all the new and specialized technology that was developed to enable the observatory to study the first stars and galaxies, examine the formation stellar systems and planetary formation, provide answers to the evolution of our own solar system, and make the next big steps in the search for life beyond Earth on exoplanets."

More from NASA

[Rick]

Nasa delays James Webb space telescope launch after 'sudden' incident

The incident took place as technicians were preparing to attach Webb to the launch vehicle adaptor, which would then be used to fix the telescope to the upper stage of the rocket. According to Nasa, "a sudden, unplanned release of a clamp band" took place. The clamp band fixes the spacecraft to the launch adaptor and then releases in orbit, allowing the spacecraft to separate from the rocket. This unplanned release caused a vibration to travel through the telescope.

More: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/25/nasa-delays-james-webb-space-telescope-launch-after-sudden-incident

[Rick]

It's primed and full of fuel, the James Webb Space Telescope is ready to be packed up prior to launch

Engineers have finished pumping the James Webb Space Telescope with fuel, and are now preparing to carefully place the folded instrument inside the top of a rocket, expected to blast off later this month.

"Propellant tanks were filled separately with 79.5 [liters] of dinitrogen tetroxide oxidiser and 159 [liters of] hydrazine," the European Space Agency confirmed on Monday. "Oxidiser improves the burn efficiency of the hydrazine fuel." The fuelling process took ten days and finished on 3 December.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/07/jwst_fueled/

[Rick]

Nasa launches $10bn James Webb space telescope

Successor to the Hubble telescope takes off on board rocket from ESA's launch base in French Guiana

The world's largest and most powerful infrared telescope has been launched into space on a mission to examine the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for signs of life.

Scientists from Nasa, who worked with colleagues from the European and Canadian space agencies, believe the approximately $10bn James Webb space telescope – a successor to Hubble – will be the foremost space-science observatory of the next decade.

More: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/dec/25/nasa-launches-james-webb-space-telescope

[Rick]

James Webb Space Telescope lifts off on historic mission

The $10bn James Webb telescope has left Earth on its mission to show the first stars to light up the Universe.

The observatory was lifted skyward by an Ariane rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

Its flight to orbit lasted just under half an hour, with a signal confirming a successful outcome picked up by a ground antenna at Malindi in Kenya.

Webb, named after one of the architects of the Apollo Moon landings, is the successor to the Hubble telescope.

More: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59782057

[Mac]

Live Telemetry data from the James Webb.

https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

[Hugh]

Thanks Mac

Good weblink for JW mission status.

Hugh

https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

[Rick]

...and here is JWST featuring in an APOD: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211231.html

[ApophisAstros]

I suppose we have to take their word for it , as the rgb background was taken at a different time and added after. Might as well be a satelite.
Roger

[Rick]

The RGB adds colour, but the star positions would be visible on the same plate as the satellite trail, so you could work out whether it conincides with the trail you'd expect to see from the JWST if you wanted. Somehow, I don't think APOD would publish it if they weren't certain it shows what they say it does.

[Rick]

JWST alignment evaluation image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220319.html

[Rick]

Meteoroid hits main mirror on James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope has barely had a chance to get to work, and it's already taken a micrometeoroid to its sensitive primary mirror.

The NASA-built space observatory reached its final destination, the L2 orbit, a million miles away from Earth, at the end of January.

In a statement, NASA said the impact happened some time at the end of May. Despite the impact being larger than any that NASA modeled and "beyond what the team could have tested on the ground," the space agency said the telescope continues to perform at higher-than-expected levels. The telescope has been hit on four previous occasions since launch.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/09/james_webb_meteoroid/

[Rick]

First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope

This first image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb's First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb's view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length by someone on the ground.

See it here

More: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

[Rick]

...and this Twitter post includes a short video which shows the image in context, with some comparisons with the previous best images of that patch of sky.

Watch it: https://twitter.com/AlyssaAGoodman/status/1546675001755111424

[Hugh]

Thanks for both links Rick!

Goodman link really puts the image size into context.

- Hugh

[Roy]

Here's a video produced by Adam Block (one of the Worlds' best astro-imagers) showing a direct comparison between Hubble and JSWT and watching this you begin to realise just how stonkingly good the JWST is. It's not just everything is so much sharper and brighter, but the background noise is much, much lower.

Roy

[Hugh]

Many thanks Roy ~ good link.

As you say the improved image quality is substantial.  Some of the red shift galaxies are just not visible in the HST pics!

- Hugh

[Rick]

Behold: The first images snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope

Over Christmas, after decades of work, the $10-billion telescope was finally launched into space and sent to orbit the Sun at a gravitationally stable point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. After unfurling its 22-metre (70-foot) sunshield, it snapped its giant gold-plated hexagonal mirror in place for its detectors to begin absorbing its first light.

Photons from objects forged over 13 billion years ago bouncing off the space observatory's mirrors are being redirected into its instruments. A collection of cameras take snapshot views of deep space, while spectrometers study the frequencies of the detected light to get an idea of the chemical composition of what we're seeing.

Now, the first images taken by the JWST have arrived revealing some of the most spectacular cosmic phenomena unfolding in space. These photos, which took hours to capture and are a composite of many images, were published online this week by NASA and its friends after the very first snap was revealed on Monday. Let's run through them.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/james_webb_space_telescope_images/

[Rick]

Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb

What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research.

APOD: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221013.html

[Carole]

Ooer

[Rick]

James Webb Space Telescope suffers another hitch: Instrument down

The Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is currently offline, and all science observations using the instrument will have to be rescheduled as engineers try to repair the thing.

"On Sunday, January 15, the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRISS experienced a communications delay within the instrument, causing its flight software to time out," NASA confirmed in a statement this week.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/26/jwst_instrument_failure/

[Dave A]

NASA's Webb Finds Water, and a New Mystery, in Rare Main Belt Comet

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has enabled another long-sought scientific breakthrough, this time for solar system scientists studying the origins of Earth's abundant water. Using Webb's NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers have confirmed gas – specifically water vapor – around a comet in the main asteroid belt for the first time, indicating that water ice from the primordial solar system can be preserved in that region. However, the successful detection of water comes with a new puzzle: unlike other comets, Comet 238P/Read had no detectable carbon dioxide.

More: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-finds-water-and-a-new-mystery-in-rare-main-belt-comet