{"id":10705,"date":"2022-01-24T23:13:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T15:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/webb-reaches-orbital-destination-a-million-miles-from-earth\/"},"modified":"2022-01-24T23:13:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T15:13:39","slug":"webb-reaches-orbital-destination-a-million-miles-from-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/webb-reaches-orbital-destination-a-million-miles-from-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb reaches orbital destination a million miles from Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artist\u2019s illustration of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The James Webb Space Telescope slipped into orbit around a point in space nearly a million miles from Earth Monday where it can capture light from the first stars and galaxies to form in the aftermath of the Big Bang.<\/p>\n

As planned, the European Ariane 5 rocket that launched Webb on Christmas Day put the telescope on a trajectory that required only a slight push to reach the intended orbit around Lagrange Point 2, one of five where the pull of sun and Earth interact to form stable or nearly stable gravitational zones.<\/p>\n

The push came in the form of a 4-minute 57-second thruster firing at 2 p.m. EST \u2014 30 days after launch at a distance of 907,530 miles from Earth \u2014 that increased Webb\u2019s velocity by a mere 3.6 mph, just enough to ease it into a six-month orbit around L2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWebb, welcome home!\u201d NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a blog post. \u201cCongratulations to the team for all of their hard work ensuring Webb\u2019s safe arrival at L2 today. We\u2019re one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I can\u2019t wait to see Webb\u2019s first new views of the universe this summer!\u201d<\/p>\n

Spacecraft at or near L2 orbit the sun in lockstep with Earth and can remain on station with a minimum amount of rocket fuel, allowing a longer operational lifetime than might otherwise be possible.<\/p>\n

An orbit around L2 also will allow Webb to observe the universe while keeping its tennis court-size sunshade broadside to Earth\u2019s star and the telescope\u2019s optics and instruments on the cold side.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, Webb\u2019s mirror had cooled down to minus 347 Fahrenheit, well on the way toward a goal of nearly 390 degrees below zero. That\u2019s what is required for Webb to register the exceedingly faint infrared light from the first stars and galaxies.<\/p>\n

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This infographic illustrates Webb\u2019s journey to L2. Credit: ESA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the rest of its operational life, Webb will circle L2 at distances between 155,000 and 517,000 miles, taking six months to complete one orbit. Because the orbit around L2 is not perfectly stable, small thruster firings will be carried out every three weeks or so to maintain the telescope\u2019s trajectory.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongrats to the team!\u201d tweeted NASA science chief Thomas Zurbuchen. \u201c@NASAWebb is now in its new stable home in space & one step closer to helping us #UnfoldTheUniverse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before launch, engineers said Webb likely would have enough propellant to operate for five to 10 years. But thanks to the precision of its Ariane 5 launch and two near-perfect trajectory correction burns carried out later, it now appears Webb could remain operational for many years beyond that.<\/p>\n

In any case, with the L2 orbit insertion burn behind then, scientists and engineers will focus on aligning Webb\u2019s secondary mirror and the 18 hexagonal segments making up its 21.3-foot-wide primary mirror to achieve the required razor-sharp focus.<\/p>\n

Each mirror segment is equipped with seven actuators, six of which can make microscopic changes in a segment\u2019s orientation and one that can push or pull as required to slightly change a mirror\u2019s shape.<\/p>\n

As it now stands, the 18 unaligned segments would produce 18 out-of-focus images of the same star. But over the next few months, the positions of each segment will be adjusted in tiny increments, one at a time, to move reflected starlight to the center of the telescope\u2019s optical axis.<\/p>\n

Once all 18 light beams are precisely merged, or \u201cstacked,\u201d Webb will effectively be in focus, clearing the way for instrument calibration. The first science images from the fully commissioned telescope are expected this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s illustration of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA The James Webb Space Telescope slipped into orbit around a point in space nearly a million miles from Earth Monday where it can capture light from the first stars and galaxies to form in the aftermath of the Big Bang. As planned, the European Ariane […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}