The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – the next great space science observatory after Hubble and a partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency – will be launched on 22 December from the Kourou base in French Guyana.
It will carry two instruments that have been tested and/or partly developed at the Liège Space Centre (ULiège) with other Belgian industrial partners, Belga News Agency reports.
The first cycle of observations of exoplanets – the Trappist-1 system discovered by Michaël Gillon – will attract the attention of many scientific teams around the world.
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One of the ultimate questions in the study of exoplanets is whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. This will be one of the questions that the PORTAL project tries to answer.
CSL's well-recognised skills in cryogenics for conducting tests and in coatings made it a key partner for ESA. ULiège researchers are now awaiting the first data to be sent by the JWST once it is fully deployed and operational.
With the power of the JWST, astrophysicists hope to provide answers to two major mysteries: the speed of expansion of the Universe and the nature of dark matter.
When fully deployed, the telescope's protective shield will cover an area of 22 by 12 metres. The mirror will measure 6.5 metres in diameter – almost three times the size of the Hubble telescope. As a science mission, the James Webb will be the largest structure ever deployed in space.
