Not many will be fully aware of it, but it was on Christmas Eve 2021 that the Space Agency of the POT gave us a gift as longed for as it was surprising: the final deployment and activation of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Since then and to date, all this artifact has done is surprise us, thanks to the versatility of its technology and all the information it has captured to better understand the mysteries of the universe.
The images collected and disseminated by the POT to date have distinguished themselves in each of the cases presented to date by its visual spectacularity and the depth of its information.
But in reality, in theory, we would just be at the dawn of a new era of exploration and analysis of the stars, thanks to which new extremes never imagined would be reached thanks to the JWST.
So it’s worth going over the key factors why this artifact is so relevant to the scientific community.
The 5 key points of the James Webb Space Telescope on its first anniversary
Science magazine (via ScienceDaily) has just named the JWST as the scientific advance of this year 2022 and in honor of this the publication, together with other media They have listed the key factors why this device is so relevant. Here we list our top five picks:
The pillars of creation and our understanding of star formation
We have a whole note dedicated to it. These columns of molecular gas are the essential key to study and understand the process of formation of celestial bodies and now we finally have the possibility to analyze it in greater depth.
Innovation from its own architecture
The JWST is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Its design is immediately distinguished by the structure of its golden primary mirror, formed by the deployment of 18 hexagonal segments.
Getting to this form took years and many drastic changes to the development team. In the end, this functional space telescope design will be the one that will set the paradigm in this field for the next decades.
The search for life and habitable places
We have observed in recent years NASA’s obsession with studying exoplanets under the idea of perhaps finding some other site that has the same characteristics as Earth and is therefore just as habitable.
This even opens the possibility of discovering other types of life on such exoplanets. So far the studies focus on 2MASS J23062928-0502285 co TRAPPIST-1c, for its geographical convenience. But that’s just the beginning.
Can analyze our own solar system
Although in its actual design this telescope is calibrated to capture and analyze data and images from deep space, the experiment has already been done with Jupiter and we discovered that it can actually also capture images of neighboring stars.
The ability to see where never before
The James Webb Space Telescope is just showing what it’s capable of. The first year of its existence has made it clear to us that there is a vast field to explore and that now it is possible thanks to its design.
