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Scientists plan to use the telescope to learn about all phases of the universe’s history dating back to just after the Big Bang event about 13.8 billion years ago, while also studying exoplanets — planets beyond our solar system — as well as worlds closer to home such as our planetary neighbor Mars and Saturn’s moon Titan.
Webb mainly will look at the universe in the infrared, while Hubble has examined it since its 1990 launch primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. Webb has a much bigger light-collecting area, letting it look at greater distances — thus farther back into time — than Hubble.
The telescope arrived in French Guiana in October after a 16-day sea journey from California through the Panama Canal to Port de Pariacabo, on French Guiana’s Kourou River. After launch, Webb will travel for about a month to a more distant orbit than Hubble, beyond the moon. Its orbit will be 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Its mission goals include searching for the first galaxies or luminous objects formed after the Big Bang and learning how galaxies evolved from their initial birth to the present day.
The goals also include observing the formations of stars and the planets around them. John Mather, Webb senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said Webb can peer into the clouds of gas and dust where stars are being born. Until now, the dust in those clouds obscured the view. “That’s one of our top goals — to see how stars grow, with their young planets,” Mather said. (Reuters)
This article was provided by The Japan Times Alpha.