James Webb Telescope to Capture First Image of Terrifying Black Hole

 

Carl Sagan once said you have to know the past to understand the present it wouldn't be wrong to add that a knowledge of the

 past also helps us to shape our future

 humanity has been looking up to the stars since the dawn of time to understand where we come from and what tomorrow holds in store for us we were limited by our capabilities dreaming of time machines that could show us the past present and future at the same time but now we have it this December 22nd may become known as the day the universe changed that Wednesday NASA expects to launch the James Webb space telescope we might even glimpse the very origins of our universe and 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 well not exactly a time machine but a machine that can peer into time and tell us what to expect in the future the gold-plated James Webb telescope is the largest space observatory in human history and it's ready to unravel the secrets of the universe that have stupefied our minds for centuries welcome the fact nominal in today's article we look briefly at the development of the James Webb space telescope and then take a deep dive into incredible marvels and mysteries astronomers expect to encounter and unravel when Hubble was still in diapers relatively speaking the concept that became Webb was proposed as the next generation space telescope and six years later adopted the name of nasa pioneer James e Webb with collaboration from the European and Canadian space agencies nasa targeted 2007 for the JWST launch that of course was off by about 14 years due largely to the chasm of differences between this new marvel and Hubble so how are the two different Hubble has tremendous range in the spectrum of visible light and a more limited region to the ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths in fact the cosmic law attributed to Edwin Hubble and others was discovered by observing that the red shift of galaxies is directly proportional to their distance from earth something that the Hubble telescope studied up to its capability this is where the JWST's unique abilities jump in and why nasa prefers to call it the successor rather than the replacement to Hubble it is specifically focused on the infrared part of the spectrum which means it can see light emitted by stars and galaxies that existed over 13 billion years ago which makes this telescope in essence a time machine just to see through clouds of galactic dust in our galaxy that absorb visible light is a tremendous advantage of infrared images and while Hubble does have that capability the JWST will peer out to far greater distances further back in time also the light gathering ability of the JWST dwarfs that of Hubble the web mirror is much larger and 100 times more powerful to see the size difference compare the diameter of a softball to that of an NBA basketball Webb also has a field of view roughly 15 times that of Hubble while Hubble for three decades has orbited the earth from 570 kilometers the JWST will orbit the sun at 1.5 million kilometers from earth at what is called the second lagrange point or l2 heat radiation evenslight interferes with detection of infrared sources much further away so for optimal performance the jwst needs to be minus 233 degrees celsius or minus 388 degrees fahrenheit thus the much further distance and five-layer tennis court size sun shield to keep background heat from the sun from interfering with Webb's infrared sensors picture a large beach umbrella and its advantages on a hot day so what are we looking for and what do we expect to find after all this is why three decades and 10 billion dollars are invested in the JWST let's take a look remember that time machine moniker

 often used to refer to JWST

 there's a great reason for that light from the very early universe is quite red-shifted and some is out of reach of anything we've had up until now web is specifically designed for near and mid infrared observations that will reach farther back through time and open windows into the beginnings of the universe while we cannot see the big bang because stars and galaxies had yet to form scientists hoped to peer into the period just after the cosmic dark ages to when the first stars and galaxies

 came to be called the re-ionization era

 this was perhaps as soon as one hundred thousand years after the big bang and scientists are counting on Webb to hopefully pin down more precisely when the universe's first light appeared day one James Webb space telescope itinerary survey half a million galaxies in one narrow patch of sky about the size of three full moons in a project called Cosmos Webb okay it's actually not day one since the JWST will be in space for weeks before it's down to operating temperature and about six months before routine scientific operations begin but for the schedule 208.6 observing hours a team of nearly 50 researchers will survey some 500,000 galaxies including an unprecedented 32,000 in mid infrared to dig into the formation and evolution of our universe oh did we mention that Webb will quickly release jaw-dropping eye candy images to the public we now have photographs of black holes okay not of them since light cannot escape their grasp but we have the closest thing possible from earth with the startling 2019 image of the colossus at the heart of the galaxy m87 captured by

 the event horizon telescope EHT project

 astronomers believe these supermassive black holes are at the center of virtually every large galaxy those actively feeding on enough surrounding matter create a light so bright that it outshines the rest of the galaxy and are called quasars even more recently in early 2021 the polarized light image of the center of m87 also came from the EHT project which uses eight radio telescopes around the world in collaboration to form a virtual earth-sized megascope

 now picture this planetary megascope teamed up with web's capabilities in space exactly the JWST will work with the EHT project to capture the first image of our own milky way's supermassive black hole known as sagittarius a star or SGR a star our cosmic neighbor relatively speaking has a mass of 4.3 million suns and is an uncomfortably close 27 000 light years from earth the JWST is expected to give astronomers an incredible view of the flickering flares regularly emitted from our galactic core something not detected from m87 thus far that's not even the wildest black hole exploration Webb has on its to-do list astronomers have found three enormous quasars more than 13 billion light years from earth as nasa estimates the universe to be 13.8 billion years old the JWST will explore these objects with billions of solar masses that date back to the early universe our new time machine is about to give us a look at primordial galaxies and possibly habitable planets the number of confirmed exoplanets has

 eclipsed 4 000 since they were first

 discovered about two decades ago and the total is doubling roughly every 27 months the JWST is about to tell us far more than we know about these other worlds as it studies their atmosphere and even looks for the building blocks of life one way is with the transit method which looks for the dimming of a star's light as the planet passes between the star and web in conjunction with ground-based observatories Webb will help measure the planet's mass and provide a spectroscopy of its atmosphere spectroscopy uses the intensity of light at different wavelengths measured when

 the planet passes in front of the star

 when a planet passes in front of a star the starlight passes through the planet's atmosphere if say the planet has sodium in its atmosphere the spectra of the star added to that of the planet we'll have what we call an absorption line in the place in the spectra where we would expect to see sodium this is because different elements and molecules absorb light at characteristic energies this is precisely how we know where in a spectrum we might expect to see the signature of sodium methane carbon dioxide or even water Dr. Marcia Rieke professor at the University of Arizona and principal investigator of JWST's NIRCam believes that it's possible that we may not only find more planets but potentially

 more planets with atmospheres like ours

 it's not just objects 13 billion light years away that the James Webb space telescope will explore our own backyard is about to be revealed to us in ways we had only ever imagined everything from the outer planets to Kuiper belt objects and asteroids the JWST will allow us to see our cosmic neighbors in a new light scientists will be able to study the composition of surface ices and volatiles on a number of bodies in our system as well as the new class of icy comets in the asteroid belt planets and their satellites will also come under web scrutiny most of which will be used in collaboration with other nasa solar system missions and ground orbiting and deep space observatories Webb will be paying close attention to mars by surveying and following up on previous findings of mars rovers and landers we may finally find out whether our neighboring red planet had a habitable past further out expect Jupiter to get special attention from the JWST as it images the planet's many spectacular features its moon Ganymede will also be studied for the potential hidden ocean between its icy crust and we can expect an investigation into the fiery moon Io and its volcanic wonderland the JWST will also enhance our knowledge of the mineralogy of our neighboring planets its unprecedented sensitivity and spectral resolution will be used to understand more of molecular and mineral spectral wavelengths inaccessible from the ground not to mention monitoring planetary and satellite weather and seasonal changes and inevitably so much more since its conception decades ago the mission of the James Webb space telescope has morphed simply because of expanding knowledge of the universe mysteries that were not even considered when the design began are front and center today and what about tomorrow astronomers fully expect the unexpected and with our incredible universe they will not be disappointed nasa calls these targets of opportunity and says that Webb's attention may be diverted to the unexpected in as little as two days the observatory will be able to slew up to 90 degrees in less than an hour so what are your expectations for the James Webb space telescope what would you like most to be revealed about our universe tell us in the comments