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NASA’s New Alien-Hunting Telescope Is So Sensitive It Could Spot a Bee on the Moon

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NASA’s latest space telescope is so sensitive that it could identify the heat released by a bee on the Moon. You might be thinking that insects are cold-blooded. But a few insects are capable of regulating their temperature. Particularly, bumble-bees, who can separate their wing muscles and ‘shiver’ till they’re warm enough to fly.

Even so, the difference among the heat signature of a bumble bee and the moon would be nearly undetectable to human senses. But the James Webb telescope’s extremely sensitive instruments could detect the thermal radiation of a bumble bee that was as far away as the Moon.

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But the 6,200kg telescope, the biggest ever to be launched into space, isn’t being sent to look for lost bees. It’s extremely fine instruments will be capable of seeing further into space than ever before, efficiently looking back in time - through clouds of cosmic dust that have blinded all the telescopes we have launched before – to see the cosmos as it was about 13 billion years ago. It will be capable of making minute studies of the atmospheres of exoplanets, possibly answering the most captivating question in astronomy: ‘Are we alone in the Universe?’

The mission is mainly run by NASA, but with crucial assistances from Britain and other associates of the European Space Agency (ESA), whose Ariane 5 rocket will take the telescope into orbit from its French Guiana launch site.

ESA’s project manager for the James Webb Space Telescope, Peter Jensen, told The Sunday Times:

“We will be looking for planets and solar systems like our own, hunying for signs of molecules such as water, CO2 and oxygen. The basic question is if they have life on them.”

John Mather, senior astrophysicist at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, spoke about the October 2018 launch of the Webb telescope to American University radio network WAMU:

“We can see the first objects that were made after the Big Bang, the first stars and galaxies. That's what we're expecting to look for. We can even see if a planet could have water on the surface so that's how we'll tell if there's a planet that could have life because it would have water. [The telescope has] such astonishing sensitivity, we can see the heat that's released by a bumble bee at the distance of the Moon.”

It’s the largest telescope ever put into orbit, and it’ll be responding to some of the major questions that astrophysicists can ask.

NASA Finally Knows What Its $8.8 Billion Dollar Space Telescope Will Be Looking For

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NASA’s perpetually troubled James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) finally unveiled what it will be looking at Thursday.

When the telescope launches in October, NASA will allow some of the scientists who built it to observe Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and the icy Kuiper Belt. The long delayed JWST will then study exoplanets and search for habitable worlds around distant stars.

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Scientists knew that the telescope was supposed to study distant worlds and search for habitable planets, but this is the first time that researchers have released a schedule of JWST’s observations. When launched, JWST will be the most powerful telescope ever built, even though it will be much smaller than Earth-based telescopes.

“From the very first galaxies after the Big Bang, to searching for chemical fingerprints of life on Enceladus, Europa, and exoplanets like TRAPPIST-1e, Webb will be looking at some incredible things in our universe. With over 2100 initial observations planned, there is no limit to what we might discover with this incredible telescope.” Eric Smith, JWST’s director at NASA headquarters, said in a press statement.

The late publication of JWST’s observation schedule isn’t the first time that delays have plagued the project. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated the JWST will take $8.8 billion to build and is seven years behind schedule. The program is already $7.2 billion over its initial budget.

The telescope cost $645.4 million in 2015 alone, accounting for roughly 13 percent of NASA’s annual science budget. The telescope has remained on schedule and within budget since December 2014, but it remains at risk of further delays, according to the GAO.

JWST isn’t the first NASA space telescope to suffer cost overruns and setbacks. The space agency’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was originally intended to launch in 1983, but technical issues delayed the launch until 1990. NASA discovered that HST’s main mirror was incorrectly manufactured after the launch, forcing the space agency to install a corrective lens in orbit using the Space Shuttle.

JWST will not have such a generous margin for error, as it will be located far beyond Earth’s orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 LaGrange point, which would make such a Hubble style fix extremely difficult. Furthermore, the telescope is supposed to unfold itself “origami style” in space. The unfolding process is technically complicated and could potentially lead to a disastrous mission failure.

NASA currently lacks the capability to send a team of astronauts out that far to fix any problems. Even if NASA could get out to JWST, the telescope won’t have a grappling ring for an astronaut to grab onto, and the telescope could potentially kill astronauts attempting to fix it.

James Webb Telescope Will not Orbit Earth

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The James Webb Space Telescope will not be in orbit around the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope is - it will actually orbit the Sun, 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. What is special about this orbit is that it lets the telescope to stay in line with the Earth as it moves around the Sun.

This allows the satellite's large sunshield to protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun and Earth (and Moon).

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(Note that these graphics are not to scale.)

Why Does the Direction of the Earth and Sun Matter?

JWST primarily observes infrared light, which can sometimes be felt as heat. Because the telescope will be observing the very faint infrared signals of very distant objects, it needs to be shielded from any bright, hot sources. This also includes the satellite itself! The sunshield serves to separate the sensitive mirrors and instruments from not only the Sun and Earth/Moon, but also the spacecraft bus.

The telescope itself will be operating at about 225 degrees below zero Celsius (minus 370 Fahrenheit). The temperature difference between the hot and cold sides of the telescope is huge - you could almost boil water on the hot side, and freeze nitrogen on the cold side!

To have the sunshield be effective protection (it gives the telescope the equivalent of SPF one million sunscreen) against the light and heat of the Sun/Earth/Moon, these bodies all have to be located in the same direction.

This is why the telescope will be out at the second Lagrange point.

What is L2?

Joseph-Louis Lagrange was an 18th century mathematician who found the solution to what is called the “three-body problem.” That is, is there any stable configuration, in which three bodies could orbit each other, yet stay in the same position relative to each other? As it turns out, there are five solutions to this problem - and they are called the five Lagrange points, after their discoverer. The L1, L2, and L3 points are all in line with each other - and L4 and L5 are at the points of equilateral triangles.

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The first Sun-Earth Lagrange point, L1, is 1.5 million km from the Earth towards the Sun, and there have been many solar observatories located here, including DSCOVR, WIND, SOHO, and ACE.

There have been other satellites out at Sun-Earth L2, where JWST will be, including WMAP, Herschel, and Planck.

Some Technical Details: It is easy for an object (like a spacecraft) at one of these five points to stay in place relative to the other two bodies (e.g., the Sun and the Earth). In fact, L4 and L5 are stable in that objects there will orbit L4 and L5 with no assistance. Some small asteroids are known to be orbiting the Sun-Earth L4 and L5 points. However, L1, L2, and L3 are metastable so objects around these points slowly drift away into their own orbits around the Sun unless they maintain their positions, for example by using small periodic rocket thrust. This is why L1, L2, and L3 don't "collect" objects like L4 and L5 do.

JWST at L2

If JWST is orbiting the Sun further out than Earth, shouldn't it take more than a year to orbit the Sun? Normally yes, but the balance of the combined gravitational pull of the Sun and the Earth at the L2 point means that JWST will keep up with the Earth as it goes around the Sun. The gravitational forces of the Sun and the Earth can nearly hold a spacecraft at this point, so that it takes relatively little rocket thrust to keep the spacecraft in orbit around L2.

8And JWST will orbit around L2, not sit stationary precisely at L2. JWST's orbit is represented in this screenshot from our deployment video (link), roughly to scale; it is actually similar in size to the Moon's orbit around the Earth! This orbit (which takes JWST about 6 months to complete once) keeps the telescope out of the shadows of both the Earth and Moon. Unlike Hubble, which goes in and out of Earth shadow every 90 minutes, JWST will have an unimpeded view that will allow science operations 24/7.

JWST's position out at L2 also makes it easy for us to talk to it. Since it will always be at the same location relative to Earth-in the midnight sky about 1.5 million km away - we can have continuous communications with it as the Earth rotates through the Deep Space Network (DSN), using three large antennas on the ground located in Australia, Spain and California. During routine operations, JWST will uplink command sequences and downlink data up to twice per day, through the DSN. The observatory can perform a sequence of commands (pointing and observations) autonomously. Typically, the Space Telescope Science Institute will upload a full week's worth of commands at a time, and make updates daily as needed.

How long will it take JWST to get out to L2?

It will take roughly 30 days for JWST to reach the start of its orbit at L2, but it will take less than a day to get far away from Earth and much of the way there. Getting JWST to its orbit around L2 is like reaching the top of a hill by pedaling a bicycle vigorously only at the very beginning of the climb, generating enough energy and speed to spend most of the way coasting up the hill so as to slow to a stop and barely arrive at the top.

Here is our video that shows the timeline of JWST's deployment en route to L2.

Alien Life to Be Discovered Next Year? James Webb Telescope ‘Will Change World Forever'

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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is planned to be launched next year and astronomers consider that this telescope is their best hope of finding life beyond Earth. The JWST is the successor to the Hubble Telescope and is way much more powerful.

The successor will help us to see further into space, as well as more precisely measure the content of water, carbon dioxide and other essential components in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It will tell researchers more about the size and distance these planets from their host stars, which is very important aspect of searching for earth like planets.

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As a result, the giant telescope which contains an enormous mirror to gather light, is being considered as the best chance of finding alien life. With a launch planned for next year, astronomers think that it is only a matter of time before alien life is finally discovered.

Matt Mountain, director and Webb telescope scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said:

“What we didn't know five years ago is that perhaps 10 to 20 per cent of stars around us have Earth-size planets in the habitable zone. It's within our grasp to pull off a discovery that will change the world forever. It is going to take a continuing partnership between NASA, science, technology, the US and international space endeavours, as exemplified by the James Webb Space Telescope, to build the next bridge to humanity's future.”

Mr Mountain added:

“Just imagine the moment, when we find potential signatures of life. Imagine the moment when the world wakes up and the human race realizes that its long loneliness in time and space may be over - the possibility we're no longer alone in the universe.”

Nevertheless, the £6 billion telescope is projected to last just five years, so its underlying, Hubble, is already choosing planets for the newcomer to inspect as researchers face a race against time, Kevin Stevenson at the University of Chicago told New Scientist.