James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope
• The James Webb Space
Telescope (JWST), NASA's
flagship infrared observatory,
developed in partnership with
ESA and CSA, successfully
launched on December 25,
2021. 

•Webb will be able to observe

galaxies that formed about 400
million years after the big bang.
 James Webb Space Telescope
• Webb will study both the far and near
universe. Astronomers will use it to see
infrared light emanating from planets
and objects in our solar system,
exoplanets, star clusters, nebulae, other
galaxies, and the most distant reaches
in the universe.

•Webb will be able to observe certain

hot, young exoplanets using a technique
called direct imaging.

•Equipped with sensitive spectrographs,

Webb will be able to detect oxygen and
other organic molecules in the
atmospheres of nearby exoplanets.
These molecules will reveal clues to the
potential habitability of other worlds.
 James Webb Space Telescope
• The observatory will be shielded from the sun
and Earth by a large deployable sunshade, the
entire telescope assembly will be passively
cooled to about 37 K, giving JWST exceptional
performance in the near-infrared and mid-
infrared wavebands. 

•The orbit of JWST has been selected to be at

L2. The spacecraft will be in a Lissajous (or
halo) orbit about the Lagrangian point L2. In
the Sun‐Earth system the L2 point is on the
rotating Sun-Earth axis about the same
distance away as L1 (1.5 million km,
representing 1/100 the distance from Earth to
the Sun) but at the opposite side of the Earth.
The L1 location is inside the Earth orbit while
the L2 location is outside the Earth orbit.
The L2 location is considered to offer the most advantageous viewing for
astronomical targets (looking toward the universe) due to nearly constant lighting
conditions (minimum of stray light). Another advantage of the L2 location is that it
offers a stable thermal environment. The telescope is kept in perpetual shadow by
looking into the deep space direction. The deep space provides a 2.7 K black body
radiation.
James Webb Space Telescope
JWST’s First Deep field of SMACS -
0723
 JWST’s First Deep field of SMACS -0723

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared

4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster
acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant
galaxies behind it. Webb's NIRCam has brought those distant
galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that
have never been seen before, including star clusters and
diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more
about the galaxies' masses, ages, histories, and compositions,
as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe (image
credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)
Hubble’s First Deep field of SMACS -
Hubble Deep field
 Hubble Deep field - N

•The first Deep Field, the Hubble Deep Field North (HDF-N), was
observed over 10 consecutive days during Christmas 1995.

•The resulting image consisted of 342 separate exposures, with a

total exposure time of more than 100 hours, compared with
typical Hubble exposures of a few hours.

• The observed region of sky in Ursa Major was carefully selected

to be as empty as possible so that Hubble would look far beyond
the stars of our own Milky Way and out past nearby galaxies.

•The results were astonishing! Almost 3000 galaxies were seen in

the image.
Hubble Deep field -
 Hubble Deep field - S

•In 1996 it was decided to observe a second Deep Field, the 

Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S), to assess whether the HDF-N
was indeed a special area and thus not representative of the
Universe as a whole.

• This time the field also contained a quasar, which was used as a
cosmological lighthouse and provided valuable information about
the matter between the quasar and the Earth.
Hubble Ultra Deep
 Hubble Ultra Deep field

•The Hubble Ultra Deep Field from 2004 represents the deepest portrait of
the visible universe ever achieved by humankind!

•Using the improved capabilities of the Advanced Camera for Surveys,

the camera installed during the 2002 servicing mission, a new Deep Field was
observed, in the constellation of Fornax (the Furnace).

•It reveals some of the first galaxies to emerge from the "dark ages", the time
shortly after the Big Bang when the first stars reheated the cold, dim
universe.

•The Ultra Deep Fields show the furthest away galaxies that can be observed
in visible light.
Hubble Extreme Deep field
 Hubble Extreme Deep field

•Published in 2012, the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field is not a new

set of observations, but rather a combination of many existing
exposures (over 2000 of them) into one image.

• Combining the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, the Hubble Ultra Deep
Field – Infrared, and many other images of the same small spot
of sky taken over almost 10 years, the Hubble eXtreme Deep
Field pushes the limit even further.

• It is made up of a total of 22 days of exposure time (and 50

days of observing time, as the telescope can only observe the
deep field for around half of every orbit.)
 Hubble Ultra Deep field

Hubble Ultra Deep field - 2014

 Hubble Ultra Deep field - 2014

•The last Hubble Ultra Deep Field released in 2014 was observed
in ultraviolet. This image allowed astronomers to study star
formation in a region 5 to 10 billion light-years away from us.

•The study is called the 

Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UVUDF)
project.

•The addition of ultraviolet data to the Hubble Ultra Deep Field

using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 gives astronomers access to
direct observations of regions of unobscured star formation and
may help to fully understand how stars formed.
 
 Further reading
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 Now JWST’s turn to
Open new window to universe…