Nearly 1 million miles from the planet soars one of the most advanced telescopes ever created. It scans the vast cosmos using state-of-the-art detection instruments and data processing methods while it orbits the sun, sending back information that is the first and most detailed of its kind.

In the almost three years since its launch, the James Webb Space Telescope has shown just how powerful and revolutionary this technology is. Functioning as a visual time machine, the JWST is regularly conducting novel research that has the potential to cause fundamental shifts in human understanding of the universe.

“Any time in astronomy we can use a different wavelength of light, we see a totally different universe.” -Andrew Caldwell, Northern Colorado Astronomical Society president

In just a few months, Christmas Day will mark the third anniversary of the JWST launch. This may also mark the beginning of the first wave of interest surrounding the JWST for most; however, Colorado State University Associate Professor Emily Hardegree-Ullman has known of the JWST for a lot longer. Hardegree-Ullman said that while she was completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona in the early 2000s, a member of the institution shared with her that they were involved with developing technology for a new space telescope.

Hardegree-Ullman teaches classes in astronomy and physics while also planning events at the Madison-Macdonald Observatory on campus. Hardegree-Ullman said she had heard about the JWST for a long time while it was still in development, but “it takes 20 or 30 years to get any telescope from beginning to actually launching it.”

The JWST’s mission duration is set for five to 10 years, meaning that at least two more years of data collection from the JWST can be expected. During this time, NASA lists four mission goals set to guide the JWST in its research. In brief, those missions are to search for the first luminous objects formed after the big bang, determine how galaxies evolve from their formation, observe the formation of stars from initial stages to planetary formation and measure the properties of planetary systems while investigating the potential for life on other worlds.

Hardegree-Ullman said that the JWST pushes everything forward.

“We always have a handful of excellent telescopes, but the reiteration keeps getting more and more powerful,” Hardegree-Ullman said.

One of these previous iterations is the Hubble Space Telescope, known for its advanced capabilities but also its limitations. The Hubble is much closer to Earth than the JWST, orbiting about 320 miles away. While the Hubble Space Telescope orbits Earth, the JWST orbits the sun with a keener eye for peering into deep space.

“It’s more of a complement to the Hubble than it is a replacement,” said Andrew Caldwell, Front Range Community College astronomy faculty member and Northern Colorado Astronomical Society president. “As wonderful as Hubble has been and continues to be, it was time for a major leap.”

The JWST launched through the atmosphere aboard the Ariane 5 ECA vehicle with a total payload mass weighing about 6,200 kilograms, including the observatory, on-orbit consumables and launch vehicle adapter. The mass of the JWST apparatus weighs 2,400 kilograms, requiring many engineering feats to assemble. The first worth mentioning is the backplane, which supports all 2.5 tons of hardware.

The JWST is easy to recognize with its now-iconic hexagonal gold segments, which make up the telescope’s primary mirror. The segmented mirror is fixed to a structure that folds into a shape small enough to fit into the rocket and then expands when in space. In collaboration with the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Air Force, NASA developed lightweight optics that would contribute to Webb’s minimal mass. The backplane supports this mirror with such precision that the margin of alignment is within 1/10,000 the diameter of a human hair.

The primary mirror’s 18 segments are made of beryllium and coated with gold, measuring just over 21 feet across. The view of the JWST is shaded, and its components are protected from the intense light and heat of the sun by its unique sunshield rated at an astounding SPF 1 million. The sunshield is made up of five layers that progress in temperature protection. The shield is built to withstand temperatures up to 383 kelvins on the hot side and as low as 36 kelvins on the cold side.

The JWST mirrors and sunshield are major components, but they would be of little use without the main four instruments that do the telescoping. These instruments are the Near Infrared Camera, Near Infrared Spectrograph, Mid-Infrared Instrument and the Fine Guidance Sensors/Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph.

Each name of the instrument hints toward the JWST’s main advantage, which is that it views the infrared light waves across the universe with remarkable sensitivity. Seeing in infrared is advantageous in deep-space observations because the lower wavelengths penetrate clouds of particles and dust that otherwise obscure information beyond. 

“Any time in astronomy we can use a different wavelength of light, we see a totally different universe, and it really is a great advantage to be able to do that,” Caldwell said. The JWST sees infrared light waves on the spectrum from 0.6-5 microns, drastically increasing what can be detected beyond the visible light spectrum.

This light reaches the JWST from the earliest stars, galaxies and other luminous objects formed in the universe. Using the NIRSpec, these light waves are dispersed into a spectrum, allowing observations of an object’s physical properties, such as temperature, mass and chemical composition. Such details were hidden by previous telescopes, but the JWST is designed to capture light 100 times fainter than that of the Hubble.

“It can see very very far back in time essentially,” Hardegree-Ullman said.

This is possible because the farther away an object is when people on Earth look at it, the earlier in the history of the universe they’re seeing it.

“Because the universe has been expanding for about 14 billion years, all of the light that was originally emitted is getting stretched to longer and longer wavelengths over time,” Hardegree-Ullman said.

Reach Miles Buchan at science@collegian.com or on Twitter @buchanmiles.