this december 22nd may become known as
the day the universe changed that
wednesday nasa expects to launch the
james webb space telescope the largest
and most expensive instrument ever flown
100 times more powerful than the 31 year
old hubble telescope
webb can see back in time all the way to
the let there be light moment
that instant when a cold dark universe
ignited into stars
the story will continue in a moment
wow
well somehow that's a lot bigger than i
imagined she's a vegan
a year ago we were among the last humans
to see the telescope much as it will
appear in space
after our visit it was packed away for a
journey of a million miles far beyond
the moon to lie forever in the grasp of
the sun
the operating life is how long
it's designed for five and a half years
with a goal of 10 years so that means we
carry enough
stuff on there
to last for 10 years amy lowe is a
systems engineer who took us up in the
clean room at northrop grumman in
redondo beach california we had to
invent it
design it build it and hand put it
together
at the bottom of the spacecraft that
silver shroud is a parasol big as a
tennis court to shield webb from the sun
above there are 21 feet of gold-plated
mirrors six times bigger than hubble's
mirror to catch the earliest starlight
in creation
there are 18 of these hexagonal mirrors
but when you fold them out
they all work in concert as one mirror
that's right all 18 images will form one
very nice
solid image that image would be
invisible to the human eye like a night
vision camera webb is designed to see
heat infrared light because that's the
only signature left from the stars at
the edge of time
even that glow will be so dim the
mirrors will have to squint for hours to
expose an image
how much confidence do you have
you know
my job is to worry i personally feel
confident that we have
thought of
everything
thinking of everything took more than 25
years and 10 billion
engineer amy lowe explained the
challenge in my mind the biggest
engineering challenge was to build a sun
shield
capable of shielding
the optics the mirrors and the
instrument on web
how do you build something big but
lightweight
the sun shield keeps webb cold and dark
any infrared heat from the sun or earth
would blind the telescope
the five layers are made of gossamer
sheets not unlike mylar birthday
balloons
the layer facing the sun is layer one
and layer one reaches about 230 degrees
fahrenheit so a pretty warm oven like if
you wanted to cook a meringue or
something and on the on the telescope
side on the telescope side it gets to
negative
370 degrees fahrenheit there's a roughly
600 degree difference there is between
one side of the heat shield and the
other yes it's amazing that it's able to
do this with nothing more
than these layers
the engineering is amazing but the
science may reveal the universe since
the beginning the big bang the arrow of
time has flown nearly 14 billion years
webb may see all the way back to the
first 100 million
the baby universe powerful telescopes
amber strawn is an astrophysicist on the
project telescopes really are time
machines they literally allow us to see
into the past
and the reason for that is just due to
the nature of how light travels
light from the sun takes about eight
minutes to get to the earth so we're
seeing the sun as it was eight minutes
ago and you can sort of think about
stepping that further out into the
universe so when we walk out under the
stars and look above us
we're not seeing the stars as they are
today
we're seeing them as they were perhaps
millions of years ago absolutely because
it took that long for the light to reach
the earth yes for sure
how much do we know
about the universe everything we know
about everything we can see me and you
everything on the planet all the
hundreds of billions of other galaxies
all of that only makes up about five
percent of the universe
the rest of it that other ninety-five
percent
we have no idea what it is
that ninety-five percent the unknown is
all around us like a ghost
nearly all the cosmos is made up of what
physicists call in desperation dark
matter and dark energy never seen
scientists infer they must exist because
they're the best explanation for how
galaxies form and move
so we know that dark matter is sort of
the scaffolding of the universe it's the
the structure on which galaxies sit uh
and if there wasn't dark matter there
wouldn't be galaxies and there wouldn't
be us
what might the webb telescope reveal
about dark matter it's like we have this
14 billion year old story of the
universe but we're missing that first
chapter and web was specifically
designed to allow us to see those very
first galaxies that formed after the big
bang now galaxies are born and then they
evolve they change over time
and this way that galaxies change must
rely critically on dark matter and webb
is going to allow us to observe that
process of galaxy evolution in much more
detail
the promise of discovery shielded webb
on what's already been a treacherous
journey
it was to launch seven years ago but
delays come with a machine this
ambitious
because of cost overruns webb was
canceled in 2011 by the house
appropriations committee but it was
saved in the senate
its namesake is james webb head of nasa
in the 1960s who made science a top
priority
what are the stakes what's writing on
that rocket with webb when you talk
about what's at stake it really is
nasa's reputation to take on a mission
that is as challenging as webb and be
successful bill oaks and greg robinson
run the program oaks was an engineer on
hubble robinson has supervised nasa
quality and performance if you want to
be bold and get the kind of science
we're after
you have to make the investment
and it's going to answer two big
questions for astrophysics where do we
come from and are we alone and we're
looking forward to getting those results
is web going to work
yes it's going to work i have very high
confidence i am 100 confident why a
hundred percent confident because when i
look at the testing that we have done
over the years
and
the type of engineering that went into
it you build a sense of confidence that
you know it's going to work
what are you most concerned about
unfolding the entire telescope is what
you worry about the observatory had to
be folded into an ariane 5 rocket just
16 feet wide
it's wrapped today tight as a rosebud
in flight more than 40 systems must
blossom with perfection
including amy lowe's never invented
before
sunshield
all five layers will be folded up
and held in place by pins
how many pins are there there's a
hundred and seven of these
membrane release devices and pins that
hold all five layers
pinned to this structure here called the
ups all total 107. and
as you're unfolding how many of those
can fail
none
none none not one not one there is
literally no room for error
we
test and we do a lot of analysis to
ensure that each
and every single one of these will
release on orbit
10 billion rides on those pins
the hubble telescope 340 miles up could
be reached with a wrench
webb at a million miles is beyond repair
bill oaks told us that if something does
get stuck
there is an emergency plan
we've developed algorithms to
essentially may we call it the shimmy we
do a little shake on the telescope and
we can rock it back and forth
that doesn't work we have another one we
call the twirl which can actually spin
the telescope either clockwise or
counterclockwise to help shake things
loose so you're going to do what i do
with devices when they're not working
you're going to shake it
yeah yeah can i do the same thing yes
if
pins release the mirrors synchronize and
10 000 things go right
webb will be limited only by about 10
years of fuel for pivoting and pointing
canada contributed the aiming system
that will guide webb to wonders far and
near
more than a thousand astronomers around
the world are competing for telescope
time
heidi hamill was granted 100 hours i
have so many questions
my particular focus is objects in our
solar system
hamill told us that light is full of
information
webb can define the chemistry of a place
by analyzing its wavelengths of light
what is the atmospheric water content of
mars and how does it change with time
what drives the chemistry in the upper
atmosphere of neptune
can we see
if there's water coming out of the moons
of jupiter or saturn there are just an
infinite number of questions i want to
answer
astrophysicist natalie battaglia also
has time on web
she'll be looking at planets beyond our
solar system on average every star in
the galaxy has at least one planet
that means that there are more planets
in the galaxy than there are stars
hundreds of billions of planets and with
that many planets battalia is sure webb
could find some with the chemistry and
conditions of life
there happens to be one planetary system
the star has seven planets orbiting it
and the star is only about 40 light
years away
so it's a great target to study and it
has three earth-sized planets orbiting
in what i would call the goldilocks zone
where life could potentially exist not
too hot not too cold that's the idea yes
and so this is also one of the very
first targets that we're going to
observe observe with webb
and what we'll be able to to see is
is there carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere what are the greenhouse gases
is there carbon dioxide in combination
with methane because that's what earth
has so by looking at these chemical
constituents we might be able to piece
together if it's not just a planet in
what we call the habitable zone but if
it's truly a habitable environment
and somebody might ask why does it
matter
the end point is to
put an end to our cosmic loneliness we
want to know if there's life out there
from a
researcher's perspective is webb
evolutionary
or revolutionary
every time you put a new piece of
technology into space or you look at the
universe with different eyes
you you learn something revolutionary
something that you couldn't have even
predicted
i don't know what those surprises are
going to be but the technology is
revolutionary and there will be
tremendous surprises that will astound
us
webb is on the doorstep aboard a
european space agency rocket
some including amy lowe may hold their
breath as it unfolds itself on the
month-long journey to its station around
the sun
the first images in six months or so
will be converted from invisible
infrared into pictures suitable for
headlines
chances are what we see we will not
understand
the very definition
of wonder