Additional goals of the James Webb Space Telescope include observing the birth of stars and planets, as well as searching for extra solar planets.
A new generation of discovery reminiscent of the Hubble Space Telescope will extend its reach even further out into the cosmos via infrared light when the James Webb Space Telescope is launched into space in October 2018.
A larger mirror in comparison to the Hubble will allow the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to pour even deeper into the galaxy, Spaceflight Insider reported, and will do so primarily observing infrared rather than visible light.
The goal of the new telescope will be to observe the birth of stars and planets, search for extra solar planets, and identify the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang and to find out how galaxies evolved.
The reason Webb telescope is configured to observe the infrared is because the most distant objects of the universe are receding so fast that they can only be seen in infrared, Spaceflight Insider reported. The faster an object recedes from an observer, the longer its wavelength, and its spectrum shifts toward the red.
The JWST will be launched by an Ariane rocket and will be boosted to the L2 La Grange Point, 930,000 miles away. Hubble orbits the Earth at an altitude of 347 miles, Spaceflight Insider reported.
The La Grange Points are points in space where the interaction of two gravitational fields equals the centripetal force required for an object to move with them.
NASA’s announcement of the JWST comes at a time when the Hubble Space Telescope marks its 25th anniversary.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. The Hubble will be deorbited in 2024.
One of the most extraordinary space flights in shuttle history was the Hubble repair mission which was launched on Dec. 2, 1993, when astronauts installed a new main camera and corrective optics package—or “eyeglasses”—in an unprecedented five spacewalks.
