“It is a small step for a man and a great leap for humanity” said Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969, after that first historical march on the lunar surface, where he arrived as commander of the crew of the Apollo 11 spacecraft. It is estimated that more than 400 million people excitedly watched that walk on our black and white television screens of the time, in a waste of science and technology never seen before.
I felt a similar emotion on December 25, 2021 when, as a Christmas present for humanity, the United States space agency NASA, together with the European (ESA) and Canadian (CSA) space agencies, at 8:20 a.m. Caracas, launched the Ariane rocket from ESA’s Kourou space station in French Guiana, containing the James Webb Telescope (TJW), a scientific-technological wonder one hundred times more powerful than the Hubble Telescope, in orbit since 1990 Accustomed to English as the universal language of science and technology, it was surprising as well as seductive to hear engineer Jean-Luc Voyer give the takeoff order in French: «Ten, nine, eight, […], four, three, two, unit… take off».
From that moment, the TJW began a journey of 1.5 million km in 29 days, until January 23, when it will reach the Lagrange point 2 (L2), an equilibrium point for the space observatory to orbit around the sun, maintaining the same orientation with respect to the sun and the earth, so calibration and shielding will be easier. Once reached L2, the telescope will require an additional five months for the complete tuning of the equipment, in order to start sending discernible data and images.
While traveling, the TJW has been following a long and very precise chain of steps to engage all the pieces, like a huge origami, in a feat of engineering never seen before. On January 8, 2022, the TJW put into position the last three hexagonal mirrors (18 in total) that make up the 6.5 meter wide cosmic eye. Already on January 4, the TJW had fully deployed the parasol, the size of a tennis court.
Because the TJW will work in the infrared spectrum, it will require very low temperatures, close to 40TheC about absolute zero, i.e. -233TheC. This is the rationale for the sunshade that will protect the TJW from direct sunlight and which, packed inside the Ariane rocket, was deployed in several stages until January 4. “Unfolding the sunshield in space has been a crucial milestone for the success of the mission”, in the words of Gregory L. Robinson, director of the Webb program at NASA. “Thousands of parts had to work with precision to achieve this marvel of engineering, one of the most audacious tasks in the entire process of bringing the TJW to its ultimate destination.”
All these operations are followed from the control center, monitoring the telemetry coming from the TJW. For weight and space reasons, the telescope does not carry video cameras to check the success of its operations. To do this, hundreds of sensors distributed throughout all the mechanisms on board have been used.
Unlike the Hubble telescope, adjusted for visible light, the TJW is a telescope that works in the near and mid infrared, a radiation that all bodies naturally emit and that will allow you to look much further into space, up to 100 million years after the Big Bang, defined as the beginning of the universe, that is, the initial point in which it was formed matter, space and time, the moment when the first galaxies began to illuminate the universe, about 13.8 billion years ago. With this range, the TJW outperforms the Hubble telescope, which allows us to see only up to 400 million years after the Big Bang.
Hector Rago, a Venezuelan astrophysicist (ULA), currently living abroad, comments that “the TJW is going to study the formation of the first galaxies and stars that formed in the early universe, about 100 million years after the Big Bang. The light from these early galaxies has been traveling for 13.8 billion years and due to the expansion of the universe it is today in the frequency of infrared light, so the telescope will be able to detect it. TJW will be able to detect galaxies ten to a hundred times fainter than those detected by Hubble. Analyzing these first lights of the universe, astrophysicists will try to refine details about the origin of stars and galaxies and the physical processes that take place in their formation. And it will try to answer two fundamental questions for humanity: Where do we come from? And are we alone in the Universe?
As was the case with the scientific and technological advances required for the successful flight of Apollo 11 in 1969, we will soon see the applications of the scientific and technological advances in the TJW reflected in our daily lives. It was from digital technology developed for space flight (digital fly-by-wire technology) that now planes have digital control instead of manual for their flights and many motorists use them for their transfers on the ground. Also in the food industry, the procedure known as the “random analysis and critical control point” (HACCP) system, which today is officially used by the United States and other countries in the control of food safety in meat, fish, juices and other processed foods, is derived from the requirements generated by the Pillsbury food company for the preparation of the food that the astronauts would carry on their ships. Special fireproof fabrics are today used in the manufacture of protective clothing for firefighters. Environmental remediation technology designed by NASA to repair spaces affected by chemicals expelled by rockets are now in common use in environmental remediation throughout the planet. These and many other applications can be seen on the portal In the Technology Transfer Program.
Long is the road traveled by the human being since in Sumer and Babylon some six thousand years ago he began to look at the sky in search of signs for his terrestrial orientation while expanding his presence on the planet. With less success, he also looked (and there are many who still look) mistakenly towards the celestial vault in search of clues that would allow him to elucidate what destiny had in store for him.
In any case, the fascination with the Universe has opened paths for the scientific understanding of matter and the world in which we live, far from esoteric interpretations in arcane books. Almost 400 years ago the fearsome Inquisition condemned Galileo for insisting that the Earth was not the center of the universe, a sentence that lasted 360 years until Pope John Paul II “rehabilitated” him in 1992. Today it is flat earthers and similar specimens who Against all documentary evidence, they insist on absurd theories, denying themselves the possibility of being amazed at the scientific advances of our time.
We, on the other hand, have already marveled at the records that the Hubble telescope has been sending since 1990. And now we look forward to the images that the TJW will begin to send by mid-2022, opening new windows for us in understanding the universe to which we belong.
https://www.analitica.com/opinion/un-inmenso-origami-el-telescopio-james-webb/