The James Webb Space Telescope Mirror is seen during a media unveiling at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Maryland in 2016. The first operation, in 1993, corrected the telescope’s blurry vision, a flaw introduced during the mirror’s construction on the ground. Spacewalking astronauts performed surgery five times on Hubble. That makes the milestones over the past month - and the ones ahead - all the more critical. The 7-ton spacecraft always faces Earth’s night side to keep its infrared detectors as frigid as possible.Īt 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away, Webb is more than four times as distant as the moon.Ĭonsidered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits 330 miles (530 kilometers) up, Webb is too far away for emergency repairs. Monday’s thruster firing put the telescope into orbit around the sun at the so-called second Lagrange point, where the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth balance. The observatory’s gold-coated mirror - 21 feet (6.5 meters) across - unfolded a few days later. The high-flying drama began within days of liftoff.Ī sunshield as big as a tennis court stretched open on the telescope in early January, 1 1/2 weeks after the Christmas Day launch from French Guiana. That’s a mere 100 million years from the Big Bang, when the universe was created.īesides making stellar observations, Webb will scan the atmospheres of alien worlds for possible signs of life. The telescope will enable astronomers to peer back further in time than ever before, all the way back to when the first stars and galaxies were forming 13.7 billion years ago. WATCH: Can asteroids be veered away from Earth? New NASA spacecraft aims to find out And I can’t wait to see Webb’s first new views of the universe this summer!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “We’re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. But flight controllers in Baltimore were euphoric after chalking up another success. The mirrors on the $10 billion observatory still must be meticulously aligned and the infrared detectors sufficiently chilled before science observations can begin in June. On command, the James Webb Space Telescope fired its rocket thrusters for nearly five minutes to go into orbit around the sun at its designated spot, and NASA confirmed the operation went as planned. (AP) - The world’s biggest, most powerful space telescope reached its final destination 1 million miles from Earth on Monday, a month after it lifted off on a quest to behold the dawn of the universe. This could be USAF top-secret alien tech fused craft, but I don’t think so, the person on the camera seemed dismayed and unprepared for its sudden appearance.CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. I believed if it was a capsule it would have gone into low earth orbit then lower to land, but when this object shot upward into deep space, it literally blew my mind. At first I thought it was a capsule or satellite, but its speed increased, and after 22 minutes it shot up and into deep space. He explained, "I was watching the NASA live space station cam when I noticed the camera zooming in on a strange object coming from below the space station. Waring, the founder of UFO Sightings Daily, was the one who first spotted the unidentified flying object, and he posted a video showing exactly where it was and what it looks like. We're funding five experiments to study the Sun, Earth, and their interactions: go./42T5U9L. Recently, the astronauts on the ISS were doing some routine maintenance on the station but as the camera rolled, a pinecone shaped metallic object moved past the space station before turning upward and shooting off into space. Mark your calendars for April 8, 2024: A total solar eclipse will darken the skies of North America as the Moon blocks the light of the Sun for a few minutes. If you are a science nerd who is ever bored, NASA has a YouTube channel filled with videos that might tickle your fancy, and among them is a live feed from the International Space Station.
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