UT astronomy department taking research to higher level with Webb telescope [The Blade, Toledo, Ohio]
May 10 The University of Toledo’s physics and astronomy department is abuzz now in anticipation of the world’s most powerful telescope being launched into outer space Oct. 31.
There’s good reason for that: NASA has chosen an amazing five UT research proposals to be part of the telescope’s initial year or so of deep-space viewing and data collection.
One is from a graduate student scheduled to get his doctoral degree this month. He was competing against hundreds of other astronomers, many with 20 or 30 years of experience.
/PRNewswire/ Media will have the opportunity to see the iconic golden mirror of NASA s James Webb Space Telescope open for the last time on Earth during a.
image1377gunn.jpg
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn
Media will have the opportunity to see the iconic golden mirror of NASAs James Webb Space Telescope open for the last time on Earth during a virtual briefing Tuesday, May 11, at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT). Officials from NASA and Northrop Grumman will discuss the significance of the mirrors deployment and next steps for the mission as it prepares for launch, which is targeted for Oct. 31. The event will air live via the following link:
The worlds largest and most powerful space telescope, Webb opened its iconic primary mirror wings in May as part of the telescopes final testing regimen at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California. The conclusion of this test represents an important milestone as Webb marches toward launch.
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope.Image: Marty Harris, McDonald Observatory, UT Austin
The universe we see is only the very tip of the vast cosmic iceberg.
The hundreds of billions of galaxies it contains, each of them home to billions of stars, planets and moons as well as massive star-and-planet-forming clouds of gas and dust, and all of the visible light and other energy we can detect in the form of electromagnetic radiation, such as radio waves, gamma rays and X-rays – in short, everything we’ve ever seen with our telescopes – only amounts to about 5% of all the mass and energy in the universe.
NASA s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland is expecting to launch the James Webb Space Telescope on Oct. 31. This is how it will look once it is deployed. (Adriana Manrique Gutierrez, NASA animator)
By LOGAN H. ARNESON
Capital News Service Washington Bureau
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland is planning to put a new deep-space telescope into operation in October. The James Webb Space Telescope will replace the Hubble Telescope and have greater capabilities to see farther into the universe than was previously possible.
Goddard began the telescope project in 1996 and originally aimed to launch it into space in 2007. But the complex instrument ran into design and technical issues, prolonging final development by over a decade.