American Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) The James Webb space telescope, which it has been working on for many years with many countries for the discovery of the universe, was launched on December 25, 2021, towards the Langrange-2 (L2) point, 1.5 million kilometers away, where it will serve for about 10 years. . It is now completing its journey, which is expected to take 29 days after launch. The telescope is now at L2. So what awaits us next?
Millimetric installations will be made on the telescope for 5 months.
Launched with the Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana on December 25, 2021, the telescope reached the second Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth, which lasted for 29 days without any human touch. After 5 months of preparations, millimetric installations of the telescope, which is planned to start sending the first data in the summer months, will begin.
James Webb Space Telescope was produced in the form of a giant eye with a diameter of 6.5 meters with 18 hexagonal mirrors. These mirrors have been produced with the equipment to detect infrared rays and will send their first data after a very complex and very fine-tuned process for 5 months.
What does the Langrange-2 (L2) point mean?
First of all, Lagrangian points refer to the places where the gravitational forces of 2 large bodies, such as the Sun and the Earth, are in balance. Point L2, which is the second among these points, is the most suitable point where Webb can face the heat and light sources in the universe that need to stay super cool to detect weak heat signals.
What will the James Webb Space Telescope do?
The James Webb Space Telescope project is explained by the phrase “the day the definition of the universe changed,” according to many scientists. So much so that Webb is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Telescope, which discovered more than 200,000 galaxies, the source of most of the information we know about space. In another sense, Webb will be able to see 13.5 billion years ago by traveling in time.
38485
