New 'Hubble' on steroids
2007-05-11 08:36
Jean-Louis Santini
Washington - Once unfurled in orbit in 2013, the world's biggest space telescope will have an eagle-eyed camera that scientists hope will lift the veil from the origins and mysteries of the universe.
The US space agency unveiled in Washington on Thursday a full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a probe bejewelled with new technologies that will succeed the ageing but invaluable Hubble telescope in 2013.
Scientists hope the telescope, named after the man who ran Nasa from 1961 to 1968, will peer back to the first stars after the "Big Bang" and the formation of solar systems capable of hosting life.
The telescope, a joint project of the US, European and Canadian space agencies, will be three times bigger than Hubble, with a hexagonal mirror 6.5 metres in diameter and five-layer sunshield the size of a tennis court.
The probe being built by Northrop Grumman Corp will incorporate 10 new technologies, including an infrared camera and a spectrometer kept at an extremely low temperature for optimum performance. The telescope is expected to have a 10-year lifespan.
Hubble revolutionised astronomy
The model was put on display on Thursday in front of Washington's National Air and Space Museum.
Launched 17 years ago, Hubble revolutionised astronomy by peering deep into the universe, beaming back dazzling images free of the distortions from Earth's atmosphere.
Orbiting 575 kilometres above Earth, the Hubble has enabled scientists to better measure the age and origins of the universe, observe distant supernovas, and identify and study bodies in and outside the solar system.
While Hubble was able to peer back to one billion years after the Big Bang, officials said the new telescope, with mirrors that will capture six times more light than its predecessor, will look even further into the origins of the universe - by seeing light emitted from even more distant objects that has taken hundreds of millions of years to travel this far.
"Clearly we need a much bigger telescope to go back much further in time to see the very birth of the universe," Edward Weiler, director of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre, told a news conference.
Hubble, along with space telescopes Chandra and Spitzer, have shown that the universe is hiding many mysteries, but they are unable to solve them, said Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute near Washington.
Images from the dark age
"We cannot penetrate the darkness of the time when the first galaxies were born," Mountain said.
The current telescopes are also unable to provide answers about black holes and the enigmatic dark matter, he said.
With its more powerful mirrors, the new telescope "for the first time will send images from that dark age, high resolution pictures", he said.
The $4.5bn James Webb Space Telescope will be folded to fit inside a European Ariane V rocket in 2013 and will unfurl 1.5 million kilometres from Earth.
Nasa plans to launch a space shuttle mission next year to upgrade and maintain Hubble in order to keep it operational through 2013.
Without a repair mission, the telescope would shut down in 2009 or even earlier, dealing a blow to scientists who have relied on Hubble's images to better understand the universe.
"Before Hubble humans could only imagine the universe," Mountain said. "Now they can see it."
- AFP