welcome to lab 360 for all the news and videos from the world of astronomy we have been following
the james webb space telescope very closely since it first took off into space last december
every step of its unfurling while it heads into its final form has been reported on and
for good reason the tool is regarded as one of the greatest scientific endeavors of the 21st century
that almost didn't happen as the project was burdened by years of delays and billions
of dollars of overspends many even called to cancel the project but lo and behold the mission
succeeded despite everything and the telescope has now completed the process of aligning three out of
its four instruments this step is the sixth stage of aligning the tool's mirrors to its scientific
instruments so that they can proceed to create the most accurate and focused images possible
the seventh and final stage is yet to come after this next crucial step the mid-infrared instrument
has to continue its cooldown however it should be noted that previous alignment
efforts were so successful that no additional adjustments to the secondary mirror are necessary
until the seventh and final stage this stage will occur when the mirror has fully cooled down
as a general rule the commissioning process starts with course corrections
and then moves into fine corrections the early secondary mirror course corrections however
was so successful that the fine corrections in the first iteration of phase six were unnecessary said
chanda walker webb wavefront sensing and control scientist all aerospace this accomplishment was
due to many years of planning and great teamwork among the way front sensing team
almost there indeed the telescope that almost never happened is now heading for its final form
one that will relay back much information about our universe possibly answering long-standing
questions and unraveling mysteries about our cosmos this will all occur once the miri fully
cools to its cryogenic operating temperature that step is set to take place in the weeks ahead and
will ensure that final adjustments are made to the telescope's instruments and mirrors if needed
once the tool is deemed capable and ready to deliver focused light to each of its instruments
a key decision meeting will occur to confirm the end of aligning the james webb space telescope
and that's when the true fun will begin the researchers will effectively move from focusing
on alignment efforts to commissioning each instrument for scientific operations what might
we discover only time will tell what do you guys have to say drop in your comments to let us know
and don't forget to subscribe to lab360 for all the news and videos from the world of astronomy
2021 ended on a good note no sorry a great note on christmas morning of 2021
an aryan 5 cea rocket blasted off from kuru french guinea
it carried with it the largest and most sophisticated space telescope ever built
the james webb space telescope since then jwst has reached its orbit about one million miles from
earth unfurled its tennis court-sized sun shield and aligned its 18 hexagonal mirror segments
the telescope's first images are expected by summer however nasa has released images
from its early alignments and the young space telescope has already surpassed expectations
over the next few years the telescope will make cutting edge observations to help the scientific
community answer myriad of outstanding questions in astronomy and yes including questions about the
nature of dark matter dark matter is an enigmatic substance that scientists believe accounts for 27
of matter in the universe but so far it has not been observed directly we can only deduce dark
matter's presence by observing its gravitational effects on normal matter different theories
suggest that there are two types of dark matter particles hot dark matter and cold dark matter
hot dark matter are considered to be particles that would have moved so quickly in the early
universe that gravity would not have been able to confine them cold dark matter on the other hand
would have moved so slowly that gravity would have formed them into small dark matter structures that
eventually would have coalesced into larger clumpy ones cold dark matter simulations show dark matter
clumping into small blobs continually snowballing and merging until large structures like the milky
way are formed these gravitationally bound blobs of dark matter are known as halos anna nirenberg
assistant professor of physics at university of california was awarded 39 hours of observing time
during jwst cycle 1 to look for small dark matter halos many models including the baseline dark
matter model predict the existence of small halos that do not actually contain galaxies
such a halo would have no stars inside it but then the question arises if there are no stars within
these blobs of invisible material how can we even try to detect them nirenberg and her team of
nearly 20 scientists are using a phenomenon called gravitational lensing born of albert einstein's
theory of general relativity gravitational lensing says that matter bends space-time
and subsequently any light that encounters it if light from a distant source travels
through the universe toward earth and passes by a massive object such as a blob of dark matter the
light will be warped around it if the in-between object is massive enough the light is deflected
in such a way that we'll see up to four images of the light source appearing around the mass
nirenberg's team will measure the number of small dark matter halos by observing a sample of quasars
that have been gravitationally lensed for those who do not know quasars are extremely luminous
active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole with mass ranging
from millions to tens of billions of solar masses surrounded by a gaseous accretion disk
now detecting small halos would be a triumph for the cold dark matter theory
but not detecting small halos would imply that cold dark matter does not exist
because the light from these quasars must travel a great distance in an ever-expanding universe
it is stretched along the way pulling its wavelengths into the infrared range
the mid-infrared wavelengths they are observing are almost impossible to see with ground-based
telescopes we're going to be observing with absolute redis bands that jwst can accommodate
nirenberg says these wavelengths cannot be observed by the hubble space telescope
which studies gravitational lensing at visible wavelengths and older space based telescopes
that can see in the mid infrared don't have the resolution to separate the different lenses making
these observations in mid ir requires the high spatial resolution that only the jwst can provide
the kind of data that we can get with the james webb telescope is unique and much more powerful
or constraining compared to the hubble nirenberg says i really believe that this is going to be a
huge scientific step forward the james webb telescope is an ideal tool for this search
because of its exquisite sensitivity to faint objects as well as the telescope's abilities to
take high quality images and distinguish pairs of sources at very small separations and thanks to
its 21-foot diameter primary mirror the jwst will see farther than any other telescope ever built
future jwst science programs might further explore the mysteries of dark matter whether through
gravitational lensing or perhaps by observing statistics of galaxy evolution that scientists
can then compare to dark matter theories we don't lack theories of what dark matter could be
there are a lot of them gilman says what we lack are observations that wield a lot of
constraining power over these theories and that's something that the james webb space
telescope is going to give us we cannot wait what about you guys drop in your comments below
you