Tiny shutters for new observatory.With the Hubble Space Telescopes Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the first large optical orbiting observatory. Built from 1978 to 1990 at a cost of $1.5 billion, the HST (named for astronomer E. P. Hubble) was expected to provide the clearest view yet obtained of the universe. sharpest camera no longer working and its repair uncertain, the spotlight falls on the orbiting observatory's successor. Scheduled to fly in 2013, the infrared-sensing James Webb Space Telescope This article or section documents a scheduled or expected spaceflight. Details may change as the launch date approaches or more information becomes available. (JWST JWST James Webb Space Telescope (NASA) JWST Jamaican Waterslide Team ) is designed to record the first stars and galaxies that flamed into existence. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. engineers now report that they have demonstrated that a set of small but critical electronic devices developed for the new telescope can withstand the rigors of launch and can travel into deep space. With those devices, known as microshutters, the observatory will simultaneously record the spectra of light from 100 galaxies. Each of the four microshutters to be used on the Webb telescope consists of a grid of 62,415 squares etched into a 0.35-square-centimeter silicon wafer. Each square, only as wide as three to six human hairs, acts as a controllable shutter. It blocks unwanted light from bright foreground objects but permits the faint light from a single remote galaxy to travel to the telescope's detectors. In practice, the telescope will apply voltages to keep open only whichever shutters would collect the light from galaxies of interest, notes telescope engineer Murzy Jhabvala of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Md. "The microshutters enable a vast increase in the efficiency of spectral studies from JWST by making it possible to obtain simultaneously spectra of many galaxies or stars that lie close together on the sky," comments infrared astronomer Michael Werner of NASNs Jet Propulsion Laboratory “JPL” redirects here. For other uses, see JPL (disambiguation). Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a NASA research center located in the cities of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge, near Los Angeles, California, USA. in Pasadena, Califi--R. C. |
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