James Webb Space Telescope arrives at orbital home 1 million miles from Earth

 

Henry Bazinet

2/9/22

Chemistry current event

            “James Webb Space Telescope arrives at orbital home 1 million miles from Earth” by Julia Musto is an article that outlines the James Webb telescope’s arrival at the point where it will orbit as well as the possible rules that the telescope could play. The telescope will orbit around a point called '' L2 '' which the article says is properly balanced between the sun's gravity and earth's. The “L2” point is a million miles away from Earth, the telescope will remain there orbiting the point and orbiting the sun in line with the Earth. The article says the reason for this is to keep the sensors on the telescope as cold as possible. The article says that the telescope is supposed to replace the Hubble telescope, also metoning that the telescope is too far away to make emergency repairs, unlike the Hubble.

 

A telescope over a million miles away probably doesn't seem very useful to us, however  the article gives multiple reasons why it is relevant to us, for example the telescope will be able to view what the universe was like by “looking back in time 13.7 billion years” also the telescope will be able to scan the atmospheres of other planets, which could give us insight into the possibility of alien life.

 

The article was an interesting read and was very informative, it also included statements made on Twitter from the Nasa Administrator and the official Webb telescope page, showing the reader first hand information on the topic. The only bad thing I have to say about this article is that it was technical and tricky to understand as it didn't give much background information. To improve this I would tell the reader in simple terms what some more obscure terms mean, such as “L2”. It is somewhat explained in the article what this means, but to truly grasp the concept I had to go to the NASA website's article on the telescope.