James Webb Space Telescope: A New Era in Infrared Astronomy

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) represents a monumental leap in space exploration and astronomy. Its journey began in the early 1990s when astronomers and engineers, even before the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, foresaw the need for a more advanced instrument that could observe the universe in infrared light. This capability would allow scientists to peer through cosmic dust and gas, providing insights into regions and objects that had been hidden from visible-light telescopes. Such an instrument would be critical for studying star formation, distant galaxies, and the origins of the universe.

In 1996, NASA initiated the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) project, which was later renamed the JWST. The objective was ambitious: to build a telescope with a much larger mirror than Hubble’s, capable of detecting the faintest infrared signals from the earliest galaxies that formed after the Big Bang. The plan involved the development of a segmented mirror design, consisting of 18 hexagonal segments that would unfold in space, creating a mirror over 6.5 meters in diameter—much larger than any previous space telescope. Along with this advanced mirror system, the telescope was equipped with sensitive scientific instruments designed to analyze the infrared light it captured, providing unparalleled detail of the universe's farthest reaches.

By 2002, the NGST was officially renamed in honor of James E. Webb, NASA’s second administrator, who led the space agency during the critical years of the Apollo program. His leadership was instrumental in achieving NASA's goal of landing humans on the Moon, and the JWST name reflects his legacy in advancing space exploration.

After construction began in 2004, progress was steady but faced delays due to the complexity of the project. Major milestones were achieved in 2011 with the completion of the 18-segment mirror, and by 2015, the scientific instruments were delivered for integration. The telescope underwent extensive testing to ensure it could survive the rigors of space travel, including extreme temperature fluctuations and the vacuum of space.

On December 25, 2021, the JWST was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana, marking a critical moment for the space science community. The telescope successfully arrived at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point in January 2022, a stable location in space where it could maintain a consistent view of the cosmos. Its first breathtaking images, revealing intricate details of nebulae, galaxies, and distant stars, were released to the public on July 12, 2022, ushering in a new era of discovery and reinforcing the telescope’s importance in furthering our understanding of the universe.
James Webb Space Telescope: A New Era in Infrared Astronomy

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe

In the 20th and 21st centuries, scientists have sent spacecraft to study the Sun close-up. In 1990, the Ulysses probe orbited the Sun three times. It helped determine that the Sun’s magnetic field reverses every 11 years.

On May 31, 2017, NASA has renamed the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft humanity's first mission to a star as the “Parker Solar Probe” in honor of American astrophysicist Eugene Parker.

Eugene Newman Parker developed the theory of the supersonic solar wind and predicted the Parker spiral shape of the solar magnetic field in the outer Solar System.

In 2018, NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe, which will travel far closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission will revolutionize human understanding of the Sun. The mission will “touch the Sun,” flying directly through the solar corona, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions and providing unprecedented, close-up observations of the star human live with.

With the cost of project US$1.5 billion, Parker Solar Probe was launched on 12 August 2018.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe

NASA the History

NASA the History
NASA was created in 1958 largely as a response to the sense of emergency that arose from the Soviet Union’s launching of the Sputnik 1 satellite in 1957.

What NASA a s an organization subsequently accomplished in ten short years –landing people on the moon – has few parallels in either the public or private sectors; it met the challenge issued by President Kennedy to win the race to the moon.

NASA began with about 4,000 employees, doubles by 1960 and reached a peak of 36,000 employees in 1966.

In the same period, NASA budget increased eightfold, peaking at about $5 billion dollars in 1965; this was 0.8 percent of the US gross national product for that year.

NASA was an expanded organization, building on the existing National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) – an agency with a long and positive record of foreign American aviation.

As a scientific and engineering institution, NACA had been very successful in aeronautics and was quietly but slow moving into the space exploration field prior to Sputnik’s launch.

NASA, a favorite agency of President John F. Kennedy – himself a near mythical hero to many American – NASA soon became an organization that could do no wrong.

With the Apollo escape program, NASA undertook to land humans on the surface of the moon and bring them back safely to earth, and it accomplished that mission on July 20, 1969.

The agency’s success in carrying out this extraordinary difficult task helped establish US technological superiority on a global scale and also garnered NASA wide admiration for its accomplishment.

In the 1970s and 1980s NASA focused on building frequently launchable and mostly reusable vehicles: the space shuttles. The first shuttle launched was Columbia, in April 1981.
NASA the History

The Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope
Initial discussion of an orbiting telescope, led by Lyman Spitzer and Leo Goldberg in the late 1940s, generally met with little enthusiasms.

Ground based astronomy remained more attractive to most astronomers, as shown by the national observatory campaign of the next decade.

During the 1960s, however, NASA’s Orbiting Astronomical Observatories program rekindled interest in the concept and led to suggestions for a federally funded Large Space Telescope with a 3-meter mirror.

The telescope soon became linked with the proposed space shuttle as an important payload and as a target for later maintenance missions.

As part of a continuous concern with the costs, astronomers joined NASA officials to redraft plans for the instrument during the 1970s, ultimately decreasing the mirror size to 2.4 meters and minimizing scientific goals in favor a program design that congress would accept.

The instrument proved much more difficult to design than originally thought, leading to higher costs, further modifications and a complete management shake-up in 1983.

The successful launch of the telescope in April 1990 appeared to justify the $1.6 billion project costs (more than four times the original estimate), but the instrument soon proved seriously flawed. The main mirror had been ground to the wrong figure, making precise focusing impossible.

The NASA review panel report, issued in November, concluded that inadequate testing procedures had led to the misshapen mirror.

The scientific rewards that Hubble Space Telescope promised are at hand. In 1996, Hubble Space Telescope took its 100,000 exposure – a milestone that some thought would never come.

The newly improved telescope is often more productive than the most productive ground based telescope with which it works.

With proper care and maintenance, it could last well into the first decades of the 21st century.
The Hubble Space Telescope