The new NASA space telescope is approaching its target around the sun

Launched by the American Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to see the early stages of the universe and will reach its target in an orbit around the sun on Monday. About 1.6 million km from Earth.

By maneuvering to fix the final path using rocket thrusters on the telescope, the web is expected to reach its fixed position between the Earth and the Sun, known as the Lacrande 2 or L2 point, within a month of launch.

Eric Smith, science director of NASA’s web program, said console engineers at the Baltimore Space Telescope Science Institute would operate the thrusters and use ground-based radio signals to ensure successful entry into web orbit.

Since its privileged position in space, the web telescope has a special path to be aligned with the Earth in the planet’s rotation and the telescope around the Sun allows wireless communication with it without interruption.

Launched thirty years before the Web, the Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth at an altitude of 547 kilometers, entering and exiting the Earth’s shadow every 90 minutes.

The gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth together allow point L2 to keep the telescope in its position so that no additional rocket propulsion is required to prevent it from deviating from its position.

The Functional Center began adjusting the main glass of the telescope, which consisted of 18 gold-plated beryllium octagonal mirrors, each 6.5 meters wide, larger than the main glass of the Hubble telescope.

The size of the telescope and its design allow it to accurately see gas and dust clouds in infrared light and to observe objects at greater distances, i.e. to know what happened in earlier times than was available by Hubble or others. Telescopes for mankind.

These properties are expected to signal a revolution in the world of astronomy, allowing the Big Bang to have the first glimpse of galaxies 100 million years after their formation, and its theory states that the known universe began to expand in 13.8 billion consecutive motions. Years ago.

Devices installed on the web telescope are ideal for searching for signs of life-giving planets on dozens of recently orbiting planets orbiting distant stars, and for observing celestial bodies close to Earth such as Mars and Titan. , One of the moons of Jupiter.

Next steps

It will be several more months before the web telescope is ready to be launched into space.

The 18 mirrors that make up the main glass were used along with other structural elements of the telescope in the two weeks since the December 25 launch. Parts of the glass were folded to allow the telescope to be stored in space in a rocket propelled into space.

Eighteen mirrors now need to be aligned to give proper focus to the main mirror, and this process takes three months to complete.

In the meantime, the ground teams will begin to operate the spectrograph, camera and other equipment. This will be followed by a two-month calibration process for the devices, Smith said.

But Smith said the telescope’s most ambitious tasks, including projects that pay attention to objects far away from Earth, will take longer, so the world will not be able to get these images for some time.

The telescope is a NASA-led international project in collaboration with the European and Canadian Space Agencies.