What does it take over 20,000 engineers and hundreds of scientists to make? A space telescope – specifically, the James Webb Space Telescope.
Thankfully, with incredible results in the first six months of science operations for NASA’s newest observatory, the effort was well worth it. But what comes next? John Mather, a Nobel laureate astrophysicist and a major force behind james webb space telescope (Web or JWST) shared his perspective on Thursday (Jan. 12) on the final day of the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Seattle and virtually all those engineers and scientists dealing with.
Mather’s involvement in astronomy predates astronomy itself. Hubble Space TelescopeLaunched in 1990, the first ideas for the Next Generation Space Telescope (which later became the JWST) were hatched in the 1980s. Making a dream like the JWST a reality has required decades of innovation by countless scientists and engineers, including inventing “new flavors of detectors” for telescopes to make the observations they hoped for.
Connected, The best images ever taken of the James Webb Space Telescope (gallery)
And the next big astronomical targets will require similar dedication and creativity, Mather said. The JWST is “a demonstration that we can do tough things,” he said in his speech at the conference. “And we will continue to work hard.”
Some targets are closer than others, and astronomers have a lot going around in their minds. Mather said, “I can’t possibly tell you all the wonderful things to come, so I’ll tell you what interests me the most.”
Many exciting new observatories are coming online in the coming months and years, including European missions Euclid and NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope These two will look for clues in the long-standing mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Vera Rubin Observatory, a massive project currently under construction in the Chilean high desert, will survey the entire sky in search of tiny changes, called transients. Astronomers think the observatory will detect millions of points of interest every night — so many that sifting through them all will be a challenge. Mather joked, “Maybe ChatGPT can help.”
Looking a little further down the road, the next hugely ambitious project is the so-called “habitable world observatory“—recommended by an important committee known as the mega-successor to Hubble and the JWST, Astro2020 Decadal Survey,
Mather said he thinks the project is within reach, and may even be easier to complete than the JWST, which is notorious for meeting budgets and deadlines. Because rocket technology continues to improve — and get cheaper — he suggested that it might even be possible to assemble the Habitable World Observatory and other next-generation telescopes in space rather than on the ground.
And it’s not all about space telescopes. Mather said he looks forward to seeing how the massive 98-foot (30-meter) diameter telescope revolutionizes astronomy here on the ground, too.
And he’s dreaming even bigger than NASA’s official plans: Maybe someday these ground-based behemoths will work together with space observatories, in what Mather calls a “hybrid space-ground” setup. For example, a key technique of ground-based astronomers relies on small violations called coronagraph Which block out the stars and render the nearby planets unconscious. Perhaps someday, Mather said, we could fly a giant starshade into orbit and match it with telescopes on the ground.
Where such ambitions might take us is unclear, but to date, each time our technology has improved, we have learned a great deal about the universe – often something completely unknown has been found. Mather ended his talk by rhetorically asking what we would see with this new technology. “I don’t know,” he said, “but too many details and farther than you can do now.”
Follow the author @briles_34 On Twitter. follow us @ on twitterspacedotcom and on Facebook,