On February 11, 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — LIGO — announced the detection of gravitational waves for the first time. It ended a 50-year search for direct confirmation of the elusive gravitational waves, first predicted by Albert Einstein.The observatory is sometimes described as two observatories, because its key instrument, a laser interferometer, has two sections. One is located in Livingstone, Louisiana, the other in Hanford, Washington. Working together, they form a single precision instrument a couple of thousand miles across.If success in detecting gravitational waves marked the end of one era, it signaled the beginning of another: the exploration of the universe using new instruments of fantastic, nearly unimaginable precision, of which LIGO is only a beginning.Elusive GravitySir Isaac Newton identified gravity as a basic property of nature and described its characteristics, but he did not explain how it worked. Albert Einstein proposed in 1916 that gravity was not a mysterious "force" but rather a bending of space itself in the presence of a heavy mass. He also showed that the massive accelerating objects — such as orbiting black holes — would distort the fabric of space, sending gravitational waves outwards in all directions like ripples expanding on a pond.Strong indirect evidence supported Einstein's theory of gravity, but actually detecting gravitational waves was difficult — so difficult that while active efforts to detect them began in the 1960s, no one succeeded until LIGO did a year ago.The LIGO instrument consists essentially of two vacuum pipes, each two and a half miles long, containing lasers that can measure each pipe's length with extreme precision. Extreme as in measuring a change equal to 1/5000 the size of a proton. Neil DeGrasse Tyson describes this as "the most precise measurement ever made, by far."This unfathomable precision allowed researchers to detect the subtle jostling of the pipes by a powerful gravitational disturbance: the collision of two black holes, each many times more massive than the Sun, in a distant galaxy.David Yeaton-Massey, an experimental physicist doing basic research at Northrop Grumman, had the opportunity to work on LIGO while completing his PhD at Caltech."Being part of a team dedicated to listening to what the universe is whispering to us was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The concept is relatively simple, much like electromagnetic radiation is produced when you shake an electron, gravitational radiation (a little ripple in spacetime) is produced when you shake matter. Despite the simplicity the analogy offers, it took a pair of massive, distant black holes colliding close enough to earth (140 billion light years) for us to see the event. The scale and scope of what the LIGO community accomplished cannot be underestimated."A Quiet Place in the SkyWhile scientists were already confident that Einstein was right, LIGO's success opens the way to a new branch of astronomy, exploring the universe by measuring gravitational waves and mapping their patterns.This will require even more precision than LIGO achieved, and by far the best place to make such measurements is in outer space. A space mission called LISA Pathfinder has already been launched — not to detect gravitational waves itself but to test the technology needed for a future mission.A deep space gravitational wave observatory remains years down the road, but 2018 should see the launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). A successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope, it will take precision astronomy in space to a new level. Unlike Hubble, the JWST will primarily observe the universe in infrared light, blocked from ground-based observatories by Earth's atmosphere.And instead of orbiting a few hundred miles above Earth, JWST, for which Northrop Grumman is the main industrial partner, will float in space in a position about a million miles from Earth (technically, in the second Sun—Earth Lagrange point). The distant location will help shield the JWST from Earth's own heat radiation, which otherwise would wreak havoc on infrared sensors that must operate at very low temperature.The JWST will not observe gravitational waves, but its infrared telescope will be able to look farther into deep space — and further back into the early history of the universe — than any existing telescope. The science is astounding: JWST will help us see the first stars and galaxies, better understand how galaxies form over billions of years and, finally, help identify earth-like planets that potentally support life. Whether earth-based or space-based, a new era of amazingly engineered machines will unlock mysteries that we can only guess at today.Learn more about how you can play an active role in Northrop Grumman-affiliated projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope.

Making Waves: LIGO Celebrates an Anniversary of Proving Einstein's Theory

The James Webb Space Telescope (often referred to as Webb) is the world's largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. And guess what? It detected what is believed to be a new supernova about 3 to 4 billion light-years away during its first week of operation.
This is a big deal because Webb wasn't specifically designed to search for new supernovae — and they are really hard to detect. But the telescope looked in the exact right direction at precisely the right time. Let's break down the discovery by starting with the basics.
What Is a Supernova?
The "super" half of the name is obvious — it is really big and impressive — and the nova half means "new." From our perspective on Earth, a new supernova looks like a sudden, short-lived brightening so intense that it looks like a new star being created.
But the supernova doesn't happen during the birth of a star. No, just the opposite. A supernova represents a star's self-detonation near the end of its evolution. It can be either the final moments of a massive star's life as it runs out of fuel — the explosion of a dying star — or the result of a star accumulating matter from a nearby neighbor until a runaway nuclear reaction ignites.
A supernova occurs when a massive star explodes and collapses into either a neutron star or a black hole. As the star runs out of fuel, the pressure drops and gravity causes the star to collapse inward. The outer layers then rebound during the collapse and explode violently. This explosion releases huge amounts of debris and particles.
Supernovae are one of the brightest events in the entire cosmos. At its peak brightness, a supernova can be as luminous as an entire galaxy. But new supernovae are relatively rare events, occurring on average about once every 50 years in the Milky Way.
How Do Astronomers Find Supernovae?
Normally, astronomers find new supernovae by using a telescope that makes surveys by searching large swaths of sky. But people have been finding them since at least 185 A.D., the oldest appearance of a supernova recorded by mankind.
In the year 1054, before telescopes, Chinese astronomers recorded a supernova in the Crab Nebula that was so bright they could even see it in the daytime. Scientists are still studying it today. Another supernova, Kepler's Supernova, was discovered in 1604. Kepler's Supernova is the most recent supernova to be discovered in our Milky Way galaxy, and it was observed with the naked eye.
Since the development of the telescope in 1608, the field of supernova discovery has expanded. In 1933, a team from Caltech used a 45-cm telescope at Palomar Observatory to discover 12 new supernovae within three years. They did this by comparing new photographic plates to reference images of extragalactic regions.
Using the comparison technique, the Earth-based telescopes that usually look for supernovae take images of the same wide areas of the sky every few nights. Data-processing software compares every new image with previous images of the same area, looking for anything that might have changed. By the 1960s, astronomers began using computer-controlled searches to discover even more supernovae, and by the 1990s, several automated programs searched the skies for supernovae. Even amateur astronomers have used the comparison technique to discover new supernovae.
In more recent years, supernovae have been detected by looking for neutrino emissions, and the remnants of supernovae could be found by looking for gamma rays from the decay of titanium-44. On May 21, 2008, astronomers were able to catch a supernova on camera for the first time just as it was exploding. They were looking at a galaxy 88 million light-years from Earth when they noticed a burst of X-rays by chance.
A variety of telescopes were aimed in that direction just in time to capture it.
Webb's Infrared Camera
The Webb telescope was built to look very closely into deep, small areas of the universe to find details from an area as small as a grain of sand — not to scan the skies for new supernovae. Astronomers planned to use Webb to look at light from the earliest stars and galaxies that formed in the universe in the short hundred million years after the Big Bang. That's why finding a supernova right away was such a surprise. Astronomers were extraordinarily lucky to happen upon a supernova at the perfect moment in time as it exploded.
Webb's primary imager uses a Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) that was designed to focus with unprecedented resolution on the near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelength range of 0.6 to 5 microns, which is outside the visible range. These wavelengths are important for peering through gas and dust to see distant objects that would otherwise be hidden.
Unlike the short, tight wavelengths of visible light, longer wavelengths of infrared light penetrate the dense molecular clouds of dust that block most of the visible light. Because of this, the dust is transparent in these infrared wavelengths, meaning stars and planets going through the process of formation will come into clear view with Webb.
The Latest Find
Just a few days after the start of its science operations, Webb's NIRCam instrument spotted an unexpected bright object, which dimmed over a five-day period. This is classic supernova behavior and suggests that it could have been a supernova caught by sheer luck. The object was discovered in a galaxy that's between 3 and 4 billion light-years away from Earth, which means that astronomers are seeing an explosion that happened over 3 billion years ago.
The Webb team used software to compare the new observations with images of the same galaxy taken from the Hubble Space Telescope in 2011 to show that this bright object was indeed new. Scientists are careful and want to be extra sure before they confirm that what Webb saw really was a supernova, so they'll continue to collect time series data.
What Else Can the James Webb Space Telescope Do?
Since astronomers were able to detect such a special event in the first week of operations, does this mean Webb could spot supernovae regularly? Each of Webb's deep field images includes hundreds of galaxies representing hundreds of opportunities to spot a supernova. Additionally, Webb's deep view could make the aftermath of a supernova easier to track. Astronomers could watch how light from the supernova dims over time or measure its spectra to reveal what chemical elements made up the parent star that exploded.
Webb was designed to see the earliest galaxies that formed in the universe in the first 100 million years after the Big Bang. Just imagine what scientists could learn if Webb was able to capture the death throes of one of the universe's first generations of giant stars. Those early stars — made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium — would have been massive, about 200 to 300 times the mass of our sun. They would have burned hot and fast and exploded into enormous supernova.
As Webb continues its investigations of the early universe, it's sure to rewrite all the textbooks and fundamentally change our understanding of the universe.
Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.

Surprise! The James Webb Space Telescope Detects a New Supernova

What has a sunshade the size of a tennis court, an 18-segment mirror, and a great view of the early universe? The James Webb space telescope — or just Webb for short. After more than two decades of design, construction, and travel to the far side of the Earth-Moon system, the James Webb Space Telescope has finally seen the light. Webb left its final assembly point at a Northrop Grumman facility near Los Angeles and traveled to French Guiana on the Atlantic coast of South America for launch at the tail end of 2021, and the world's space scientists watched as our next generation space telescope cruised more than a million kilometers past the moon. Currently stationed 1.5 million km (about 932,000 miles) from Earth, this super-cool space telescope is singularly positioned to look back at the bleeding edge of space and time — to when the first stars opened their radiant eyes and the first galaxies formed. But first, all 18 of those mirrors must align. The process of getting more than a dozen curved pieces of gold-coated glass to behave like a single, giant light collector will take several months to complete. It will take substantially less time to recount how many pieces had to fall into place for the telescope to become the biggest eye to ever sail into our sky. On the Shoulders of a Space Giant It's nigh-impossible to launch into a discussion of the James Webb Telescope without first mentioning the telescope that set the very, very, very high bar for astrophotography. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a workhorse in the sky. After being ferried into low Earth orbit on the space shuttle, HST had to be serviced several times by astronauts before it could rise to the task of capturing images of galaxies forming and plumes erupting from Europa. But indeed, it has seen these sights and more. HST brought us the deep field — then the ultra deep field. It found four moons around Pluto. With HST, we tracked asteroids and other objects in the universe. We hunted the cosmos for dark matter and energy. Our understanding of the universe exploded, and it continues to expand at light speed, thanks to this school-bus-sized satellite and its 4.5 m2 (5.38 square yard) mirror. After more than two decades in service, Hubble's gaze is still sharp. It can see objects the width of a human hair a mile away. But HST's sight is largely limited to visible wavelengths of light (wavelength 2.5 to 0.1 microns). There's far more cosmos to see than what meets Hubble's telescopic eye — for instance, heat emitted by exoplanets as they form. Unfortunately, signals such as the first rays of light shed by the earliest stars — still cooling and stretching across space 13 billion years later — lie outside HST's capacity to detect. It is exactly those kinds of signals that Webb was designed to pick up. Using technology similar to what firefighters use to see through smoke, James Webb will look past what Hubble would see in the visible light spectrum to collect far fainter infrared (IR) signals. Using IR, the Webb will see giant jets of gas in nebulae. It will see through giant jets of gas surrounding newly born stars and recently exploded ones. The planets forming in dusty disks around distant suns will be clearer than ever thanks to Webb's primary mirror — which, at 6.5 meters (21 feet, 4 inches) across, is more than twice the size of Hubble's . Webb's vast capacity to collect IR signals is secondary to its careful engineering. All 18 segments of Webb's mirror are coated in a microscopically thin layer of gold. As it turns out, gold is an excellent reflector of infrared light. Once the segments have been brought into alignment, they will send the signals they collect to Webb's similarly coated secondary mirror. Finally, the information will pass to Webb's infrared camera, which itself has an image-collecting area roughly six times greater than Hubble's. All of this means clearer pictures of the Universe and all it contains, further out in space and farther back in time, with up to 100 times more sensitivity than Hubble can see now, but in a slightly different wavelength. Keeping It Cool Calling Webb a "super cool" satellite isn't just a turn of phrase. When it comes to detecting IR, super cool is the key to success. IR radiation is, simply put, heat. The cooler an IR detector is, the better it can differentiate between heat signals coming from the depths of the asteroid belt, the Oort cloud, or distant stars and heat lifting off its own body or from nearby bodies, such as the Sun. When it comes to IR signals, the Sun is a non-stop source of heat-based noise. Hiding from the biggest source of infrared radiation in several light-years is no mean trick. The Spitzer space telescope used active cooling to keep itself hot on the trail of IR signals. Webb stays cool by staying behind a giant reflective sunshade. One of its instruments, the MIRI, hides behind a flying refrigerator. The MIRI — or mid-infrared instrument — receives super cold helium gas from a cryogenic cooler and compressor that live on the spacecraft's warm side near the shade. Webb is so big that the MIRI is 10 meters away from both the sun side and the compressor. The helium gas pumped away from the cooler toward MIRI keeps the instrument 10 degrees Kelvin colder than the other Webb instruments, which allows it to pick up very small signals: between 5 and 28 microns. For reference, a human hair is between about 50 and 90 microns thick. With the Webb launch on December 25, 2021, not only did humankind put a larger telescope into space than ever before — it also expanded our Earth-Moon-Sun system. The Webb telescope now lives more or less permanently in L2: a gravitational balance point that keeps Webb roughly 930,000 miles away from the Earth. There, it faces away from the Sun, the biggest source of infrared energy in our neighborhood. Seeing back to the beginning of time requires that Webb keep its back turned to the Sun and the Moon and the Earth, facing away from a generation of engineers and scientists who laid eyes or hands on it. Unfolding Space The last human to lay eyes on Webb in person saw the biggest space telescope in history folded up like origami. HST was only the size of a school bus; Webb is many times bigger. It had to be accordioned like a fan the height of a three-story building into the rocket that carried it away. No one who watched it be packed away, loaded onto the launch pad, and sent into space knew for certain if it would unfold. If it unfolded, would all the pieces deploy as they should? The mirrors alone took 10 days to fully deploy. Now that the pieces are out, will they work together? Unlike Hubble, which was rescued by human hands, Webb sits far beyond our physical reach. The Webb telescope will face away from us forever. The sensors are online. The systems are warming up (while keeping it cool). On Earth, the world waits to see if the earliest parts of the universe will emerge from the darkness to light up our screens, introducing us, image by image, to a place we've lived in forever but have never fully seen. Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics, and engineering has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search jobs in these areas of scientific innovation.

Unfolding Space and Time: The James Webb Space Telescope Launch

Soon, the James Webb Space Telescope (also known as JWST or Webb) will expand our views of the sky. Astronomers will use the new telescope to observe previously unseen regions of space, ranging from the galaxies that formed right after the Big Bang to the youngest star systems that are forming today. Earth is minuscule in the scale of the universe. So far, astronomers have discovered giant planets, supermassive black holes, hypergiant stars, superclusters of galaxies and other large objects in between. And that's while observing just a small sliver of the universe with the Hubble Space Telescope. It is hard to predict what Webb will ultimately discover. "It's a new instrument, the largest telescope ever built for space," says Jon Arenberg, chief engineer for Space Science Missions at Northrop Grumman. "We'll be able to collect data that we have not gotten our hands on before, including observing the early universe, in particular." Astronomers have already discovered some humongous objects, and JWST could soon uncover even more giants in space. "By having this new instrument that that can observe even more galaxies than we've seen before, we will be able to look for structures and groups of these galaxies in places we've never looked," Arenberg explains. Contemplating the size of objects in space compared to our tiny home on Earth could make your head spin, but Arenberg finds comfort and pride in JWST's mission of discovery. "I feel empowered, enlightened, illuminated — not tiny," Arenberg says. He adds, "The scale of the universe is huge. But so is our planet compared to me, and I don't feel small or insignificant here on Earth." What Is the Largest Object in the Universe? It's a straightforward question with a nebulous answer. First, it depends on how you define size — by mass or volume. A giant cloud of gas, for example, is enormous in volume but relatively small in mass (it doesn't contain much matter). Black holes, on the other hand, are defined by infinitely small volume with infinite density, according to Sky and Telescope. Secondly, we'll have to consider what counts as an object. If a group of particles is an object, what about a group of galaxies? One thing is certain, the largest objects in space are much, much larger than Earth. They just appear small because they are so far away from us. Here are some of the largest known objects in the universe. 1. Largest Planet Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It's a giant ball of gas that could fit all the other planets in the solar system inside it. According to NASA, more than 1,300 Earths would fit inside Jupiter. But Jupiter is tiny compared to HAT-P-67 b, an exoplanet (orbiting a different star than our sun) that astronomers first observed in 2017. Astronomy.com reported that this newly discovered planet is 2.08 times the size of Jupiter, although it isn't as dense, weighing in at 60% less than Jupiter's mass. It's the biggest, fluffiest planet we know of so far. 2. Largest Star According to NASA, our sun is a million times the size of the Earth. But to put this in context, if our entire solar system was the size of a quarter, the sun would be a microscopic speck of dust on that quarter. As big as a million times Earth sounds, Space.com points out that our sun is only an average-sized star. Scientists have discovered "hypergiant" stars such as UY Scuti, which could fit more than 1,700 of our suns in its radius. 3. Largest Black Hole Unlike stars, black holes don't take up space, but they are dense. The largest black hole in our neighborhood, Sagittarius A*, is 4 million times more massive than the sun, according to MIT Technology Review. Meanwhile, 700 million light-years away from Earth, a galaxy called Holm 15A contains the largest known black hole in the observable universe. Astronomers used data gathered by the Very Large Telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert to run simulations that map out this distant galaxy. Their models suggest that Holm 15A has a supermassive black hole that is at least 40 billion times more massive than the sun. 4. Largest Structure Although structures might not technically count as "objects" according to astrophysics terminology, from a logical perspective, a structure is the largest object in the universe. Gravity can make galaxies clump together in space. Multiple galaxies form clusters, which can form superclusters, and even long lines of galaxies called walls, according to New Scientist. The largest known structure is the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Great Wall. This superstructure is made of 830 galaxies bound by gravity that swirl together in a wall that is a billion light-years across. JWST could help astronomers discover even larger superstructures. "We will be able to collect images and spectra from hundreds or tens of thousands of galaxies. This will help astronomers identify groups of galaxies," says Arenberg. Frontier of the Future Great societies have always pursued the unknown, explains Arenberg. He says, "Increasing our scientific knowledge is not only good in and of itself, but it's the basis of our economy and our security." All these records for the largest objects in space could soon be broken as new, powerful telescopes reveal hidden spots in the universe. Peering into deep space with JWST is the next step in a long legacy of exploration. Arenberg says, "Americans have always prided themselves on discovery and the frontier since the beginning of the country. And this is just carrying on that legacy from our ancestors. We should dare to do these amazing things and inspire ourselves and inspire the next generation."

Could JWST Discover the Largest Object in the Universe?

The Milky Way is home to approximately 100 billion brown dwarfs, reports Sky & Telescope. Brown dwarfs are often wrongly called "failed stars," but they are neither a planet nor a star, raising the question: What is a brown dwarf? Defining Brown Dwarfs Brown dwarfs are a recent discovery; their existence was confirmed in 1995, according to NASA. They are neither planets nor stars but are often confused for both. Forbes helps differentiate among the three: "Bodies smaller than 10 Jupiter masses are planets, larger than 90 Jupiter masses are stars, and in between are brown dwarfs that share properties similar to both." Although they form like stars, brown dwarfs are less massive and aren't hot enough to sustain the hydrogen fusion reaction that allows stars to shine, according to NASA. Brown dwarfs are often mistaken for planets because of their sizes and similar atmospheres. As noted by Space.com, brown dwarfs and planets have atmospheres conducive to cloud formations as well as storms, and, similar to stars, brown dwarfs can host their own planets. Weighing in at about one-tenth the mass of the Sun, brown dwarfs can range from 13 to 90 times the mass of Jupiter. When we fully understand brown dwarfs, we will truly understand the possibilities for life in the universe. Hunting the Elusive Unlike stars, brown dwarfs cool and fade as they age, emitting infrared light invisible to the human eye. Earth's atmosphere absorbs water vapor emitted by brown dwarfs, which makes an infrared observation using ground-based telescopes both difficult and limited, like searching for candles in a floodlit fog. That's where NASA's James Webb Space Telescope comes in. Equipped with several infrared-detecting instruments, the telescope will allow several NASA research teams to investigate brown dwarfs. One team plans to investigate a nearby brown dwarf known as SIMP0136. Because of its low temperature, the outer layers of this brown dwarf are believed to resemble the atmosphere of a planet. And with no bright star nearby, researchers will be able to observe it without interference. Another team will investigate brown dwarfs in a star cluster and associated nebula known as NGC 1333, in the constellation Perseus. NGC 1333, known as a stellar nursery, harbors an unusually high number of brown dwarfs. Its newly formed brown dwarfs shine more brightly because they haven't had time to cool down, allowing astronomers to study brown dwarfs not much heavier than Jupiter. The findings will help us draw a more distinct line between brown dwarfs and giant planets. If these missions are successful, the James Webb Space Telescope could be used to search for future exoplanet observation, according to Johns Hopkins University. The Strange Universe So what is a brown dwarf? With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, we hope to find more answers to this question. It's one more example that our galaxy is more complex and varied than anyone imagined only a few decades ago. The universe is rich and strange, and it only grows even richer and stranger the more we explore it.

What Is a Brown Dwarf?

December 25th, 2021, marked a scientific milestone with the successful launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (Webb). On January 24th, 2022, it arrived at its orbital home: Lagrange point 2, better known as L2. Now, the Webb telescope's first science images have made their way back to Earth. To say scientists are stoked is an understatement. While everything has (thankfully) gone to plan, this was no easy undertaking. Here's what the Webb telescope has been up to over the past few months. December to January: 29 Days on the Edge After more than 20 years, the James Webb Space Telescope blasted off into orbit on an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency (ESA) facility at Kourou, French Guiana. But this was just the beginning. Once it slipped the surly bonds of Earth, the Webb had a tension-filled 29-day journey ahead to its L2 home. Many of the parts had to work in sequence and unison to ensure the craft arrived safely and was prepared for the next step of its mission. For example, 27 minutes after launch, the telescope was released from the Ariane 5 rocket. Within two minutes after separation, its solar array was released and deployed. And 12.5 hours after launch, the telescope executed the first of three mid-course correction (MCC) burns designed to nudge it into L2 orbit without overshooting the Lagrange point, since doing so would require it to turn around and expose critical mission equipment to the full force of the sun. On the third day, the craft deployed its forward and aft sunshield pallets. After six days, the James Webb Telescope sunshield began opening, and by day 10, sunshield deployment was complete. On January 8th, 2022, the telescope was fully deployed, and on January 24th, it completed its insertion burn for L2 orbit. January to February: Setting Up Shop Once at L2, it was time for the Webb to set up shop. This started with cooldown and calibration — making sure instruments cooled down to stable operating temperatures, ensuring that mirrors and other optics were correctly calibrated, and assessing the James Webb Telescope sunshield for any damage or distortion. Day 31 post-launch saw the start of the mirror alignment process, which is broken down into seven stages: segment image identification, segment alignment, image stacking, coarse phasing, fine phasing, telescope alignment over instrument fields of view, and iterative alignment for final correction. Worth noting: This Lagrange location isn't entirely stable. Along with cooling and calibration, the telescope must make regular course and attitude corrections to remain at L2. To break it down: L2's position "behind" the Earth offers the telescope an unfettered look into the darkness of space while allowing it to soak up solar rays for power. It leverages the balanced gravity of the Earth, sun and moon to stay in orbit with minimal effort. However, L2 is an unstable Lagrange point. This means that unlike its counterparts at L4 and L5, course corrections are required every 28 days to keep the telescope in orbit. February to April: The Webb Telescope's First Images Six weeks after the launch of Webb, scientists saw the first photons captured by the telescope and detected with the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Two months post-launch, the segment alignment kicked off, followed by image stacking, phasing, and telescope alignment. Now, the James Webb Telescope is in its final cooling phase before step seven, iterative alignment, which should occur within the next month. But the Webb also took some time out to snap a few pictures and send them back to Earth. Specifically, the telescope pointed its main mirror at HD 84406 — which, according to a Space.com article, scientists describe as a "boring star" in our galaxy, and one that's 100 times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye. However, both its location deep within the Milky Way and its lack of luminesce were ideal to see if Webb could live up to the hype. Spoiler alert: It did. The first engineering images from the Webb Telescope showed a bright, amber-colored star surrounded by fainter flecks and dots — each one representing a previously unseen galaxy. Also on the list for their moment in the spotlight in the first year of science are Trappist-1E, the Trojan Asteroids and the icy moons Enceladus, Europa and Titan. Scientists hope to see distant galaxies and newborn stars as well. Put simply? The James Webb Space Telescope has been keeping itself busy over the past few months — and it's just getting started. Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman and consider joining our team.

NASA's James Webb Telescope: First Images and Initial Operations

Astronomers will soon use the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) to look farther into space than even the Hubble Space Telescope has been able to. They've already gathered an incredible amount of data and breathtaking images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Despite these gains, so much about space is still unknown. One of the fundamental facts that still hasn't been answered is what the most distant galaxies in the universe are like. The Webb telescope will extend Hubble's capabilities and help astronomers catch a glimpse of the most distant galaxies in the universe. Historical Misunderstandings Throughout history, philosophers and scientists have grappled with deep questions about humanity's relationship to space. Back in Aristotle's day, people thought Earth was the center of everything, and that everything else revolved around it. This misconception was eventually dispelled by Copernicus and Galileo (and many others in between), when Galileo pointed a telescope at the stars and used evidence to prove that the universe doesn't revolve around Earth. Centuries later, astronomers debated the size of the Milky Way. The BBC reports that in a 1920 debate between astronomers, estimates ranged from 30,000 to 300,000 light-years in diameter. It turns out that those estimates were either three times too small or three times too big. Today, astronomers measure the Milky Way to be 100,000-150,000 light-years across. In the 1920s American astronomer Edwin Hubble was the first astronomer to determine that other galaxies existed beyond the Milky Way. Until then, most astronomers thought the fuzzy patches they saw through their telescopes were nebulous gas clouds within the Milky Way. Hubble's discovery expanded our modern understanding of space. During this time period, scientists also believed that space was static, according to NBC News. And yet when Albert Einstein developed his theory of relativity, it predicted a universe that must either expand or contract. To fix the disagreement, Einstein hedged his theory with a "cosmological constant" to produce a static universe. Then, astronomers like Vesto Slipher and Edwin Hubble measured the motions of galaxies for the first time and found that most appeared to be speeding away from us. In other words, the universe is expanding. Measuring the Observable Universe The universe is larger than we can possibly comprehend, and it is still expanding. Now, a century after Hubble's discovery, his namesake telescope continues to reveal galaxies that are billions of light-years away. Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we now know that there are 100 to 200 billion galaxies, according to Space.com. When the Webb Telescope launches, it will reveal even more information about the farthest galaxies. When we talk about the distance of anything in space, we're also talking about time. Looking at the night sky is like time traveling. The shiny things that we perceive as stars are actually like snapshots of what those stars looked like in the past, according to LiveScience. Stars and other objects in space are so far away that their light can take thousands or even millions of years to reach Earth. The farthest objects are so far away from us that their light still hasn't reached Earth. What Is a Light-Year?      Enable targeting cookies to view this content. A light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year. According to NASA, one light-year is equal to 6 trillion miles, or 9 trillion kilometers. Astronomer Dr. Katie Mack explains that everything you look at is in the past. The farther away in space, the longer that light has been traveling. Even if you hold up your hand in front of your face, you're actually seeing your hand as it was a nanosecond ago, because that's how long it takes light to travel the distance between your hand and your eyes. It takes approximately eight minutes for light to travel from our sun to us, and several years for light to travel from our next-door neighbor Alpha Centauri. Astronomers can use the world's most powerful telescopes to see galaxies that are more than 13 billion light-years away. Scientists know that the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, according to LiveScience. So, is it 13.8 billion light-years wide? No; it's more complicated than that. That pesky expansion that Hubble observed means that while the farthest light traveled to us, outer space continued to expand. When accounting for the expansion, scientists estimate that the edge of the observable universe is now 46.5 billion light-years away. But what about the galaxies that we can't see? LiveScience reports that astronomers have used models to estimate that the universe could be at least 250 times the size of the 46.5 billion light-years we can actually see. Webb Will See Farther The edge of space — if there is such a thing — will always be beyond our grasp. As Hubble noted, space is expanding. As a result, the farthest galaxies are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so we can't "see" them, no matter how awesome modern telescopes may be. The Webb telescope will peer into our universe's history by observing the most distant stars and galaxies. The telescope is 100 times more powerful than Hubble. While its predecessor orbits Earth at an altitude of approximately 570 kilometers, Webb will sit deeper in space, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. From that vantage point, the largest telescope ever launched into space will observe infrared light. It will use a suite of scientific instruments to capture faint objects that could be more than 13 billion light-years away, including young galaxies that were born just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang occurred.                   

NASA's Webb Telescope Will Look Farther into Space

Images from the most powerful space telescope are here, and it’s almost as if astronomers have wiped the smudges off their glasses, revealing a clearer view of the early universe.
 
Scientists noticed something new when comparing images from the Hubble Space Telescope with new images from the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb). An ancient galaxy called MACS0647-JD might actually be two merging galaxies. The researchers are still early in their discovery process, and NASA points out that their research has not been peer-reviewed yet. Still, their findings offer an exciting peek at the potential discoveries the Webb could reveal about the universe’s origins.
 
“We’re actively discussing whether these are two galaxies or two clumps of stars within a galaxy,” says Dan Coe, an astronomer of AURA/Space Telescope Science Institute for the European Space Agency and Johns Hopkins University. “We don’t know, but these are the questions that Webb is designed to help us answer.”
 
Examining an Ancient Galaxy
 
Coe and his colleagues discovered the galaxy — or potentially merging galaxies — MACS0647-JD about a decade ago with Webb’s predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. But Hubble was designed to primarily observe shorter ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, while Webb is optimized for infrared light. Plus, the Webbis larger and located deeper in space so it can study the earliest and most distant galaxies.
 
“With Hubble, [MACS0647-JD] was just this pale, red dot,” Coe explains. “We could tell it was really small, just a tiny galaxy in the first 400 million years of the universe.”
 
Now, the distant galaxy appears to be two distinct objects: one blue and the other red. Researcher Tiger Yu-Yang Hsiao of Johns Hopkins University says, “The blue gas and the red gas have different characteristics. The blue one actually has very young star formation and almost no dust, but the small, red object has more dust inside and is older. And their stellar masses are also probably different.”
 
Gravitational Lensing
 
Part of the reason both Hubble and Webb have been able to observe a galaxy so far, far away is a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. According to the Center for Astrophysics, Einstein’s theory of general relativity explains that “gravity bends the path of light, much as it affects the path of massive objects.” The gravity of a very massive object, such as the galaxy cluster MACS0647, can be so intense that it can warp the fabric of space-time. As a result, astronomers can observe the light distortion, and the warped space acts like a magnifying glass.
 
Imagine you want to see one tiny stitch on a quilt that’s stretched overhead. When the quilt is taut, it would be difficult to identify the stitch among the others. However, if someone dropped something heavy, like a bowling ball, onto the quilt right over the stitch, the fabric would bend, and you could get a better look at the particular stitch. (See this Webb video for a more detailed explanation of gravitational lensing.)
 
Future James Webb Telescope Discoveries
 
The news about MACS0647-JD is fascinating because it demonstrates just how much we still don’t know about the early universe.
 
Rebecca Larson of the University of Texas at Austin told NASA, “I think my favorite part is, for so many new Webb image [sic] we get, if you look in the background, there are all these little dots — and those are all galaxies! Every single one of them.” She added, “It’s amazing the amount of information that we’re getting that we just weren’t able to see before. And this is not a deep field. This is not a long exposure. We haven’t even really tried to use this telescope to look at one spot for a long time. This is just the beginning.”
 
Stay tuned for more Webb discoveries in the months and years ahead as we get a better, clearer look at space and the many things in our universe waiting to be found and examined. The road ahead is promising indeed.
 
Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics and engineering, has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search for jobs in these areas of scientific innovation.
 
 

Webb Reveals Sharper Images of a Galaxy — or Two Merging Galaxies?

Our search for habitable planets that could support life just went to an entirely new level — one that extraplanetary beings might admire if we someday communicate with them. After a successful launch in late 2021, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is now nearly one million miles away from Earth and completed an extensive commissioning process that included 17 scientific instrument modes coming online and innumerable tests. Now fully operational, the massive marvel of machinery is starting the first of many observations over a potential 20-year run in space. The telescope's instruments aim to capture faint objects that could be more than 13.5 billion years away, including galaxies that started only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. While Webb looks for clues on the formation of the universe, it will also try to capture signatures of habitability in the atmospheres of exoplanets. What it finds is anyone's guess, but considering it is the largest and most powerful telescope to launch from Earth, scientists are excited. A Super Telescope Built for the Ages Will Have Its First Test Webb is 100 times more powerful than what had been the largest optical telescope to travel into space: the Hubble Space Telescope. While Hubble orbits Earth at an altitude of about 354 miles, Webb is about 930,000 miles away. From that vantage point, Webb's instruments can work mostly in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, relying on sensitivity cameras and a mirror that's 21.3 feet in diameter. That primary mirror intercepts infrared light moving through space and bounces it to a smaller mirror, which then focuses the light to the telescope's instruments for processing and study. In one of Webb's first tests, it's setting its sights on the TRAPPIST-1 system, a group of seven rocky exoplanets that are 41 light-years away from Earth and are as large as three times the diameter of our planet. NASA says Webb's findings will characterize the atmospheres of these planets and help scientists learn more about planetary formation and habitability. Yes, aside from seeing how the exoplanets formed, they're also looking for signs that life may be able to exist. Will NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Find Indicators that could support Life? Making sense of the TRAPPIST-1 system and other exoplanets could lead to indicators in the atmospheres that may support traces of life in the universe. As the SETI Institute observes, although distant objects in the images taken by Webb will appear as one-pixel dots, scientists can make a mountain out of this molehill of information. The ultraviolet light of distant planets and stars has been stretched by the expansion of the universe, but scientists can run the tiniest dots of such light through a high-tech prism and spread it into a detailed spectrum that can reveal what's in a particular atmosphere. Oxygen and other unique markers in an atmosphere can suggest biology on a planet. The SETI Institute offered one such example: Images of the atmospheres of Mars and Venus would show carbon dioxide to observers in other galaxies, while Earth would show not only CO2 but also the accumulation of exhaust gas from billions of years of photosynthesis — ample evidence of life. However, the trick is sorting out true and false findings. Scientists can't jump on a spaceship to confirm what the Webb telescope sees. To help NASA, several scientists recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to say that Webb should be alert to the presence of methane in the search for alien life. The Webb telescope will have a hard time detecting oxygen, but a prevalence of methane could point to the biological activity necessary to create the chemical compound, as the scientists explained in a press release announcing the study. Photochemical reactions destroy atmospheric methane, so its appearance in an atmosphere would mean it is constantly being replenished to maintain high levels. Nonbiological sources wouldn't be able to create a significant amount of methane without producing other clues to its origins, such as carbon monoxide. Yet, the scientists found that nonbiological sources can't easily produce habitable planet atmospheres heavy in methane and carbon dioxide and with little carbon monoxide. So, if an abundance of methane is found in an atmosphere and other nonbiological sources can be ruled out, NASA can start to build on that evidence. "One molecule is not going to give you the answer — you have to take into account the planet's full context," one of the scientists said in the press release. But methane will help to eliminate false positives and give NASA and other involved scientists a jump on determining whether distant planets did — or still do — serve as a home to biological, or as we say, "alien," life. Confidence Grows We'll See Something, Someday The stories that the Webb telescope could tell are tantalizing — so much so that scientists are starting to feel confident in the possibility of finding conditions for life in the outer reaches of space. Last year, a group of them led by NASA's chief scientist proposed a framework to verify and communicate to the public the detection of biosignatures beyond Earth. A biosignature is any characteristic, element, molecule, substance, or feature that can be used as evidence for past or present life. It also needs to be something that can't be made without the presence of life. The idea, as Scientific American reports, is to avoid false alarms and bogus claims by affixing findings to a scale from one to seven, with a claim making its way up the scale as studies confirm the work. Claims that reach the "final levels would represent robust follow-up observations solidifying a link to life." With the Webb telescope now perched in space, the joy of watching it work will come in the slow unraveling of the images it transmits home. We'll hopefully see the strongest pieces of evidence of how the universe formed, and we'll also hopefully see signs of habitable worlds carrying on millions of miles from here — creating a new set of scientific questions and prompting even more explorations of space. Did you know that Northrop Grumman helped build Webb? If you're interested in a career exploring space, please click here.

With NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the Search for Habitable Planets Seems Hopeful

The James Webb Space Telescope hasn't even launched yet, but it is already providing valuable scientific and economic benefits here on Earth. With its mission of offering unprecedented perspectives of our solar system and distant galaxies, the telescope is changing this world before it even leaves the ground. That's due in part to several inventions that were specifically developed for Webb and that have become valuable spin-off technologies in their own right. From wavefront sensing technology that could improve human eyesight to near-infrared sensors that enhance ground-based astronomical observations, these advancements illustrate how an atypical invention can have a purpose greater than initially believed.  The Challenges of Exploration Create Useful Technologies The James Webb Space Telescope — also known as the Webb telescope — could possibly explore alongside its predecessor, Hubble Space Telescope, into the next decade. NASA hopes Webb will discover the universe's first galaxies and potentially unveil a connection between the Big Bang and our galaxy. Scientists also hope the telescope can study gases about 39.6 light-years away from our sun to determine if other life forms exist beyond our world. Because of the inherent challenges and demands of space travel, as well as the complexities of observing distant stars and planetary systems primarily through dusty clouds, Webb is an intricate piece of machinery. The telescope will observe elements mostly in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, using sensitivity cameras and a mirror measuring 21.3 feet in diameter. Webb will "look back in time" by using infrared light to sort through dust clouds in order to show us the first starts and planetary systems that formed just after the Big Bang. It will also include a sunshield the size of a full-length tennis court. Together, the mirrors and spacecraft element are so large that they will have to fold in order to fit inside the nose of an Ariane 5 rocket during launch and deploy once in space. For Webb to perform its observations and thrive in the vastness of space, NASA and its contractors developed several advanced technologies that have further impacts to tasks, even outside of space exploration. With information provided by NASA, here are five of those multifaceted inventions:  Human Sight Benefits From Space Invention Improvements in wavefront technology let NASA accurately measure Webb's mirrors during manufacturing. Those advancements have since transferred to medicine, where the technology is measuring human eyes, diagnosing ocular diseases and potentially improving eye surgery. For example, doctors can now see more detailed information about the shape of an eye in seconds, rather than in hours. Webb Technology Helped Hubble Camera Repair Developed for Webb, a technology known as application-specific integrated units (ASICs) ended up helping Hubble. ASICs are integrated circuits that enable an entire circuit board's worth of electronics to be condensed into a tiny package. ASICs are programmable, which allowed NASA to fix Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys, technology that has produced remarkable views of the universe. Sensors Are Guiding the Work of Other Missions Infrared sensors developed for Webb's instruments are now also the select technology for astronomical observations in space and on Earth. These sensors record the weak light from galaxies, stars and planets. Several NASA missions have relied on an early version of Webb's HAWAII-2RG 4 Megapixel array. Hubble, Deep and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, for example, have all benefited from these sensors. Meanwhile, the HAWAII-2RG is in use at dozens of ground-based observatories around the world. A "Cold" Invention Is a "Hot" Technology Rocket science is famously known as being exactingly difficult, but sometimes it's even harder than that. Webb engineers had a tough time finding a way to test the telescope's mirrors and composite structures at the cold temperatures found in space. It's not easy to generate -450 degrees Fahrenheit. But a technology company in Arizona found a way by designing several types of high-speed test devices that use pulsed lasers to "freeze out" the effects of vibration. That invention led to the creation of other applications for astronomy, aerospace and medicine. Steadying the Telescope in the Coldness of Space The backplane of Webb supports the mirrors of the telescope. It will carry not only the primary mirror and telescope optics but also the entire module of scientific instruments, more than two tons of hardware. Northrop Grumman designed advanced graphite composite materials that are connected to titanium and invar fittings and interfaces, which will steady the backplane at 1/10,000 the diameter of a human hair while in temperatures colder than -400 degrees Fahrenheit. Northrop Grumman's contribution will not only help the Webb telescope study the stars and galaxies but, like the other spin-off technologies designed for the mission, its product can also have real value on other space missions and endeavors on Earth.

Spin-Off Technologies From Webb Telescope Are Helping Other Ventures

Before any equipment or hardware is sent to space, it's usually rigorously tested to make sure it can withstand the extremes of space. From cold temperatures to radiation, space is hard on equipment, but hardware also functions differently in space than on Earth because of differing gravity. How, then, do organizations like NASA go about simulating zero gravity on Earth?
Astronauts test their mettle with the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), a giant pool that holds 6.2 billion gallons of water. Thanks to the size, astronauts can work with life-sized mockups to help them prepare for their journey into space. But the NBL is only for astronaut training, not for testing equipment to see how it would fare in space.
This begs the question — can we create zero gravity on Earth? And how reliable is it for testing equipment that will be sent into outer space? Let's find out.
Parabolic Flights Play an Important Role
Parabolic flights help with replicating zero-gravity conditions on Earth by providing up to 40 seconds of "freefall." The origins of parabolic flight to simulate zero gravity go back to 1950, when it was first proposed by researchers at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas. By 1959, pilots were able to achieve 10 to 15 seconds of freefall in a C-131B cargo transport, which was large enough to both train astronauts and test equipment. This was a part of the Air Force's Reduced Gravity Program, which started in 1957 and has been run by NASA since 1973.
These flights work by flying in the shape of a parabola. The aircraft begins accelerating, and then the pilot pulls up. When the plane is going up at a fast enough speed, the pilot performs a pushover, reducing thrust, which allows the occupants and equipment on the plane to fall at the same speed as the aircraft.
Parabolic flight is a low-cost and often-used method of simulating zero gravity on Earth (or to simulate gravity on the moon or Mars), but it is limited by duration.
Gravity Offload Systems Offload Weight
Gravity offload systems work by using an overhead crane-type device to offload the weight of a human or equipment to simulate zero gravity, lunar gravity and the gravity on Mars. The Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS) is a large device located at NASA's Johnson Space Center. It actively tracks and follows motion using a cable angle sensor. This means that equipment and spacecraft can be moved around and interacted with, and ARGOS will maintain the simulated gravity level. Similar effects can be achieved with a complex weight and pulley system to offload the effects of Earth's gravity — a system that engineers used to test the James Webb Space Telescope.
While ARGOS is a large device, there are smaller gravity offload tables perfect for testing equipment. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has a table that consists of a large piece of polished and leveled granite. They're actually able to make test equipment "float" on top of the table thanks to the sled they're placed on — air bearings produce a thin layer of air underneath the sled, which makes it float on top of the table. "It's basically like an air hockey table in reverse," said Robotics Demonstration and Test Engineer, Joe Easley of NASA Goddard.
The downside to gravity offload systems is that they don't always offer the six directions you can move things in zero gravity — for example, the gravity offload table only offers three degrees of freedom, which can limit accuracy.
A Zero-G Research Facility Also Helps
NASA also has a specific Zero Gravity Research Facility at Glenn Research Center that's been in operation since 1966. It works by using a 467-foot-long steel vacuum chamber. A vacuum pump reduces the pressure to 0.05 torr. (For comparison, standard atmospheric pressure is 760 torr.) Then, a crane drops the equipment or experiment into the vacuum chamber and researchers have 5.18 seconds to study it in freefall. Like parabolic flight, the downside to this method is the short amount of time available, as well as a weight limit of 2,500 lbs.
Researchers are always looking for new ways to test hardware and experiments before sending them to space. But these days, as the costs of access to space get lower, the International Space Station is often used as a testbed for hardware rather than trying to figure out how can we create zero gravity on Earth.
Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics, and engineering has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search jobs in these areas of scientific innovation.

How Does NASA Simulate Zero Gravity on Earth to Test Equipment?

Space exploration is not only about seeing the wonders of the universe. Perhaps most of all, it's a search for life, and an answer to the question of whether we're alone in the universe. The search for life beyond Earth continues within our solar system; the search also extends far beyond the solar system, where we aim to discover earthlike exoplanets. Water, Water Anywhere Water is the holy grail in the search for extraterrestrial life, says Northrop Grumman's Robert Lockwood, project manager for NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission. Liquid water is essential for terrestrial life; it's so friendly to complex organic chemistry that it's regarded as the most likely environment for life elsewhere in the universe. Within the solar system, we know that Mars once had seas and rivers, and liquid water still occasionally flows on its surface. Meanwhile, Jupiter's moon Europa has a smooth, icy surface, beneath which, scientists believe, lurks a hidden ocean deeper than any on Earth. Oceans Beyond the Sun The search for potential life beyond the solar system is in some ways simpler, but it's incredibly demanding due to the enormous distances involved. Currently, TESS's mission is examining candidate stars within about 300 light-years of Earth — close enough to allow for future follow-up examination of the exoplanets that TESS discovers. What are TESS and other extrasolar survey observations — both space-based and ground-based — looking for? In a nutshell, said EarthSky, they are looking for "Goldilocks" conditions, just right. That means planets that are roughly earth-sized, big enough to hold an atmosphere, but not so big as to be mostly gas or liquid, like Jupiter or even Neptune. Moreover, the planet must orbit in its parent star's habitable zone, hot enough that any oceans don't freeze solid, but not so hot that they boil away. Seeing Past the Shadows What makes the search so challenging, Lockwood noted, is that current instruments, even the most powerful, don't allow astronomers to actually see extrasolar planets. Instead, astronomers must currently suss out planets by observing indirect effects, like the planet's bulk blocking part of its parent star, slightly dimming the star's light — the technique used by the TESS mission. This will change next year, when NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit. The JWST, as it is known, will be able to take spectroscopic images (which separate light into its individual wavelengths, or spectrum) of the light from the star as it interacts with the planet's atmosphere. The wavelengths of light absorbed or emitted will allow investigators to search for telltale signs of water vapor in a planetary atmosphere. Teegarden's Star and Beyond One current list of prime candidate exoplanets, from the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, identifies 55 leading candidates. One candidate seems to be substantially smaller than Earth, while 20 others are closer to earth-sized. The remaining 34 are classed as "super-Earths" and "mini-Neptunes." NASA provided a handy graphic showing the estimated sizes of five of the most earthlike exoplanets. And ScienceAlert reported on the recent discovery of two prime candidates orbiting a dim red dwarf star called Teegarden's Star. They orbit their parent star every few days, much more frequently than Mercury orbits our Sun (once about every 80 days), but the star is so faint that both planets are in its habitable zone. And Teegarden's Star is a mere 12.2 light-years away. This is currently too far for crews to travel to with present-day technology, but spacecraft may be able to reach these worlds with more innovations in space travel. For example, if we learn to build space probes capable of approaching the speed of light, a mission to this pair of worlds will not take much longer than the interplanetary missions that NASA has already undertaken. JWST observations of planets around Teegarden's star will mark a giant step in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth.

The Hunt for Earthlike Exoplanets

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, heralded as the Hubble Space Telescope's revolutionary successor, will transform our view of the universe when it begins its primary science mission. This incredible feat will result from the innovative work of a global team dedicated to unraveling the mysteries of the earliest galaxies and distant objects. The James Webb technology that will help us explore the universe includes a revolutionary primary mirror, a camera equipped with microshutters and infrared detectors capable of detecting the faintest objects in the galaxy. A Mirror into the Early Universe Perhaps the most impressive aspect of James Webb technology is the sheer size of some of its components. The telescope's primary mirror is a slight misnomer because it's actually a complex structure of 18 hexagonal segments assembled together that can unfold in space, according to NASA. Each mirror segment is made of beryllium, a durable and lightweight element. Combined, these 18 segments form a mirror that's 6.5 meters (21 feet, 4 inches) across. For comparison, Hubble's primary mirror measures 2.4 meters (7 feet, 10 inches). The James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror will be the largest ever launched into space, NASA notes. Once in place, the mirror will collect an incredible amount of light, allowing its onboard suite of instruments to capture faint objects that can be further than 13 billion light-years away. Each segment has an actuator that lets researchers focus on distant galaxies and stars. Researchers already have many observational candidates to test the new James Webb technology. One focus is GN-z11, a galaxy spotted by Hubble that's 13.4 light-years away. According to NASA, GN-z11 is the farthest galaxy ever observed. The James Webb Space Telescope can provide new insights into this galaxy and discover other faint galaxies that formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. With so many observation candidates, the telescope's cameras come equipped with new technology that allows these instruments to observe multiple objects simultaneously. Take a Picture  Enable targeting cookies to view this content. As any avid smartphone photographer knows, your eye is only as good as the camera's shutter. By adjusting the shutter, you're letting in the right amount of light to capture that perfect outdoor landscape or dimly lit dinner. Projecting outward, the same principles apply for capturing distant galaxies and objects in the universe. Unlike a smartphone camera, the James Webb Space Telescope is equipped with microshutters developed just for the telescope, NASA explains.  Microshutters give astronomers unprecedented control over what objects can be observed at any given moment. The microshutters are found on the telescope's Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and measure just 100 by 200 microns, according to NASA. Equipped with more than 250,000 microshutters, the NIRSpec instrument can observe 100 objects simultaneously. Researchers can program the microshutter array to let only the light necessary into the NIRSpec instrument. This ability is especially important because the objects James Webb will be tasked to observe, including GN-z11 and similar galaxies, are so faint that it takes many hours of observation before an image can be formed. The NIRSpec instrument can also help detect new exoplanets along with observing the faintest stars and galaxies, NASA explains. The Bright Object Time Series (BOTS) mode is ideal for observing the transits of exoplanets as they pass in front of distant stars. The largest mirror launched into space, microshutters that can focus on 100 objects simultaneously and an instrument capable of observing distant objects and discovering exoplanets are just a few components of the innovative James Webb technology. A project of this scope and magnitude requires new ways of thinking to better understand the beginning of the universe — made possible by a team of passionate individuals willing to push the boundaries of science and technology.

The James Webb Technology: Letting Astronomers Peer into the Early Universe

If all goes according to plan, the largest and most powerful telescope ever built will launch into space in 2021 and provide unprecedented perspectives of our solar system and distant galaxies.   The telescope is fittingly named after James Webb, who shepherded an unparalleled age of space exploration when he led NASA during its Mercury and Gemini programs and the beginning of the Apollo program. He wasn't a scientist. He wasn't even an engineer. But Webb's steady oversight and unwavering support of NASA during its most critical period is why his name is attached to the next big thing in space.   He Almost Didn't Take the Job   The 110th anniversary of James Webb's birth is Oct. 7, only days after NASA celebrates its 60th anniversary. The man and the agency will always be linked, but when President John Kennedy asked him to lead NASA in 1961, Webb had reservations about taking the job.   A North Carolina native, Webb was an attorney and businessman before serving as director of the Bureau of Budget and as undersecretary of state under President Harry Truman. Despite not having a background in science or engineering, Kennedy thought Webb's managerial and political skills were perfect for the job of leading NASA in its space race with the Soviet Union. Webb would accept Kennedy's offer but under the condition that he wouldn't run NASA as a "one-shot program." According to a NASA biography of Webb, he told the president, "'If you want me to be the administrator, it's going to be a balanced program that does the job for the country.'"   By balance, Webb meant focusing on space flight and science; he believed the combined emphasis would strengthen American universities and the aerospace industry. Webb certainly did his part in the race to space, overseeing the six manned Mercury and 10 manned Gemini flights that opened the door to the Apollo program, which he managed up until its first manned flight. But he also gave scientists control in selecting space missions, and he furthered the intellectual end of discovery by creating the NASA University Program, which formed new laboratories at universities and established grants for space research.   Webb Advocated Exploration   Webb pushed NASA in directions that are evident today. For one, he advanced the development of robotic spacecraft. When he retired, NASA had launched more than 75 space science missions to study the sun, stars and galaxies, and the space above Earth's atmosphere. Those explorations set the stage for later probe journeys to Mars and Venus and a series of stunning images that gave us an idea of what those planets offer.    Webb also espoused the development of a large space telescope, saying it should become a top NASA priority. Sure enough, that program has created several major telescopes, including the famed Hubble Space Telescope. In circling the Earth's low orbit for more than 4 billion miles since launching in 1990, Hubble has illuminated the scale of the universe by closely studying locations more than 13.4 billion light-years from our planet, giving true meaning to the "Star Wars" opening sequence phrase, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."   A Telescope for the Ages   Hubble is considered the grandfather of NASA telescopes. Its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope — sometimes called JWST, or simply Webb — is expected to launch in 2021 and could work alongside Hubble into the next decade. NASA hopes the telescope will find the universe's first galaxies and try to connect the Big Bang to our galaxy. It certainly has the technology to observe things never studied before. Its instruments work mostly in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, relying on sensitivity cameras and a mirror 21.3 feet in diameter.   At least one team of scientists hope the James Webb Space Telescope can detect if there's life elsewhere in the universe. According to the BBC, University of Washington astronomers believe it could study "'atmospheric chemical disequilibrium'" from several Earth-sized planets that orbit the Jupiter-sized star TRAPPIST-1, which is about 39.6 light-years away from our sun. Essentially, that means the telescope is capable of studying gases that might reveal if there are indeed other forms of life out there.    That's the kind of science the telescope's namesake would be proud of. 

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