Infinite Cosmos: The inside story behind JWST | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Oct, 2024
National Geographic’s first James Webb Space Telescope book shows us the cosmos like never before.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by the scientific community. Seeking to see back farther in space and earlier in time than any other astronomical observatory in history required a novel design and a series of new technological innovations. These included:
- a folded, segmented mirror,
- an enormous, novel, 5-layered sunshield,
- an incredibly smooth primary mirrored surface (with imperfections no greater than 20 nanometers), designed to operate in the cold, gravity-free environnment of deep space,
- four instruments optimized for JWST’s infrared capabilities,
and so much more. After years of design, construction, and repeated testing, JWST was finally deemed “launch-ready” and shipped across international waters to the spaceport in French Guiana.
On December 25, 2021, a near-perfect launch ensued, sending JWST on a one-way journey to the L2 Lagrange point on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun: 1.5 million kilometers away. Over the ensuing months, JWST was deployed, collected its first light, and…
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