James Webb Space Telescope
NASA/ESA/CSA space telescope launched in 2021
AI overview
The James Webb Space Telescope is a space observatory launched by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency in 2021 that observes the universe primarily in infrared light. It enables astronomers to see deeper into space and further back in time than ever before, helping us understand the origins of galaxies, stars, and planets.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope designed to conduct infrared astronomy. It is the largest telescope in space, and is equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, allowing it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. This enables investigations across many fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars and the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.
Despite Webb's mirror diameter being 2.7 times larger than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, it produces images of comparable resolution because it observes in the infrared spectrum, which has longer wavelengths than the Hubble's visible spectrum. The longer the wavelength the telescope is designed to observe, the larger the information-gathering surface (mirrors in the infrared spectrum or antenna area in the millimeter and radio ranges) required to achieve the desired resolution.
Gallery (12)
Connections
Categories
2021 in French Guiana2021 in scienceArtificial satellites at Earth–Sun Lagrange pointsCommons link from WikidataEuropean Space Agency space telescopesExoplanet search projectsGoddard Space Flight CenterInfrared telescopesJames Webb Space TelescopeNASA programsNASA space telescopesNorthrop Grumman spacecraft