Mark Megahan
NASA just put out a fresh update concerning the James Webb Space Telescope. Ten out of it’s seventeen “science instrument modes” have been officially approved to start scientific operations. Despite the ding in one of the mirror segments and the fact the equipment is still in “the final commissioning activities,” engineers tease that they already “started to take some of the first science data.” You just can’t see it yet.
Webb telescope ready for work
According to the official schedule, Earth shaking images will start being released July 12. That’s the date set to “mark the official end of commissioning Webb and the start of routine science operations.”
It’s only days away and everyone’s on the edge of their seat waiting.
Astronomers are expecting both “a historical milestone and a new era for astronomy as Webb finally goes fully operational.”
It was launched a little over six months ago with the express purpose of searching for “signs of alien life, Earth 2.0, and investigate some of the earliest known star systems in the universe.”
Onboard the Webb Telescope is a nifty new gadget called the Near-Infrared Spectrograph.
Several of it’s operational modes have already been approved. That’s the equipment which “observes spectra of astrophysical and planetary objects at near infrared wavelengths.”
Really faint features
“The NIRSpec Grating Wheel Assembly uses diffraction gratings or a prism to separate the wavelengths of incoming light into a spectrum.”
That comes in handy because Webb can use variations in “the intensity or brightness of light across the wavelengths can provide key diagnostic information about the nature of various objects across the universe.”
That, Webb engineers advise, can be used to detect everything from “extrasolar planets around distant stars, to faint galaxies at the edge of the universe.” Like that ring of Gollum’s, “NIRSpec will observe them all.”
Now that the equipment is in place and chilled down to nearly absolute zero, it’s been calibrated and getting one green light lit after another.
The big reveal party for James Webb and the first official images on July 12 will go out by live stream on YouTube. They will be the “first scientific observations made by the telescope.”
You may have seen the test shots which aren’t official. Even so, they were good enough to pick up never before seen galaxies long, long ago and far, far away.
