NASA Is Launching A New Telescope That Could Offer Some Cosmic Eye Candy

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/16/ [login to see] /nasa-is-launching-a-new-telescope-that-could-offer-some-cosmic-eye-candy
In December, NASA is scheduled to launch the huge $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which is sometimes billed as the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope.

The new telescope, the largest and most powerful ever put into space, will travel to a lonely spot 1 million miles from Earth, where it will be able to peer out into the farthest reaches of the universe.

After a setting-up period of about six months, NASA will unveil the telescope's first images to the public.

"Will Webb images look as gorgeous as Hubble images? Will we love them not just as scientifically valuable, but are they gonna knock our socks off? I'm pretty sure they are," says Jane Rigby, a NASA astrophysicist on the James Webb team.

But the new telescope has some important differences that will affect what kinds of science it can do and what kinds of images are sent home. Its primary mirror is 21 feet across and covered in gold, and it's far larger than Hubble's mirror. That will let Webb collect far more light and see much more distant galaxies. The telescope will also aid the search for possible signs of life on Earth-size planets in other solar systems by letting scientists analyze the tiny amount of starlight that filters through those planets' atmospheres.