She is an expert on the formation of galaxies, and the NIRCam will allow us to see light from billions of years ago, when the earliest galaxies and stars were formed. “Even the rocket, which is the most reliable rocket out there, it still has some tiny chance of exploding at launch.” Rieke, who has astrology-blue eyes and a no-nonsense ponytail, is the scientific lead for the near-infrared camera, known as the NIRCam, which is one of four main research instruments on the telescope. “Oh, gee, I worry all the time,” said Marcia Rieke, an infrared astronomer based in Tucson, who has devoted much of the past two decades to the J.W.S.T. The mirrors will form a reflecting surface as tall and as wide as a house, and they will capture light that has been travelling for more than thirteen billion years. Then eighteen hexagons of gold-coated beryllium mirror will open out, like an enormous, night-blooming flower. will be kept nearly as dark and as cold as outer space, to insure that distant signals aren’t washed out. These sheets, each thinner than notebook paper, will function as a gigantic parasol, protecting the body of the telescope from the light and the heat of the sun, moon, and Earth. On its way, the telescope will slowly unfurl five silvery winglike layered sheets of Kapton foil, about as large as a tennis court. From Earth, it will appear ten thousand times fainter than the faintest star. will then continue on its own, for twenty-nine days, toward a lonely, lovely orbit in space, about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, where we will never visit it, though it will stay in constant communication with us. Ariane 5 will carry the telescope some ten thousand kilometres in thirty minutes. The telescope will be put into Ariane 5, a European rocket named for a mythical princess who helped a man she loved defeat the Minotaur and escape a maze. It could have flown, sure, but it’s a tight squeeze-plus the telescope weighs seven tons, and Kourou’s airfield is connected to its spaceport by seven bridges not built to endure such a load. Thousands of scientists and engineers from fourteen countries will have worked on it. The telescope will have been twenty-five years and ten billion dollars in the making. Next month, the James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to take a slow boat from Los Angeles, spend a few days traversing the Panama Canal, and arrive at a spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
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