![]() Engineers deliberately left the fuel tank accessible for a top-off by visiting spacecraft, if and when such technology becomes available. NASA is shooting for 10 years of operational life of Webb. It's now up to Webb to draw even closer to the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Spacewalking repairs by astronauts transformed Hubble into a beloved marvel that has revolutionized humanity's understanding of the universe, casting its eyes as far back as 13.4 billion years. That's because Webb will be too far away for rescuing, as was necessary when Hubble turned out to have blurry vision from a defective mirror. Retired astronaut and astronomer Steven Hawley is more stressed over Webb than he was for Hubble, which he released into orbit from space shuttle Discovery in 1990. Webb mainly will view the cosmos in the infrared spectrum, allowing it to gaze through clouds of gas and dust where stars are being born, while Hubble has operated primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than Hubble and is expected to transform scientists' understanding of the universe and our place in it. NASA partnered with the European and Canadian space agencies to build and launch the new 7-ton telescope, with thousands of people from 29 countries working on it since the 1990s. On the sides there will be two doors in the shape of a circle that will allow for night observations.Intended as a successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope, the long-delayed James Webb is named after NASA's administrator during the 1960s. It will be installed on a huge hemispherical dome with a diameter of 85 meters and a height of 74 meters. The ELT, whose construction began in 2017, will consist of a main mirror with a diameter of 39 meters, consisting of 798 small hexagonal mirrors. "The development of astronomy is linked to what technology and observational capabilities provide, and all that these wonderful tools make possible," he added.Ĭurrent observing instruments can provide answers to the questions astronomers were asking three decades ago, but in order to expand the horizons of knowledge, more effective instruments have been built, such as the ELT telescope, which will be installed above Cerro Armazonis at an altitude of 3000 meters. "There are scientific questions that we want to find answers to, and these questions dictate the need for technology to help us find these answers," said Chilean astronomer Luis Chavarria of the European Southern Observatory, which finances the construction of the ELT telescope. ![]() ![]() It is known with the aim of providing answers to still outstanding questions about the origin of the universe. The telescope will constitute a new “eye” in the sky that will be added, starting from 2027, to the set of observational instruments with great capabilities that are already operating in the Atacama Desert, and will allow scientists to increase the ability to observe by 5,000 times than it is currently, in addition to focusing on places that are still unknown today. This optical instrument, which will see the light of day in five years, is the most powerful yet, and aims to expand the capabilities of astronomers to observe. The firsts of the Large Ultra Telescope (ELT) are slowly beginning to appear in northern Chile, which is considered one of the best places to observe stars. ![]()
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