Previous post Next post

James Webb – A glimpse into the origins of the universe

The James Webb Space Telescope, which lifted off into the heavens in December 2021, is on the hunt for distant galaxies, faint comets and early star formations. A key component of the telescope was part-developed in Switzerland.

The Webb, the biggest and most powerful telescope ever sent into space, is considered as the successor to the Hubble telescope launched in 1990 by NASA. However, while the Hubble captures images in the spectrum visible to the human eye, the Webb can see further in both space and time – largely thanks to the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), one of four scientific instruments on board. MIRI, developed with the help of Swiss researchers, can peer into the wavelength range from 5 to 28 microns – a mid-infrared range under-researched to date, and within which it’s hoped can be spotted galaxies at the edge of the universe.

The Swiss component was developed by the Paul Scherrer Institute in collaboration with industrial firms. Later the project was taken over by the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics (IPA) at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich, working within a European consortium that also collaborated with NASA. ETH Zurich astrophysicist Adrian Glauser and his team developed special cryo-cables as well as a mechanism to protect MIRI from contamination during the cool-down phase; to work optimally, MIRI has to be cooled to -266°C – close to absolute zero.

The Swiss team will thus be finishing its work with the Webb telescope, but for Glauser the next job is already waiting. Along with his scientific director Sascha Quanz, he will oversee the infrared imaging device METIS at the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which is set to begin operating in the Atacama desert in Chile in 2027. Apart from this, he is also already working on the next generation of space telescopes, which one day will be capable of searching for exoplanets similar to Earth.

---
swissinfo.ch is the international branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Its role is to report on Switzerland and to provide a Swiss perspective on international events.

For more articles, interviews and videos visit swissinfo.ch or subscribe to our YouTube channel:

Website: http://www.swissinfo.ch
Channel: http://www.youtube.com/swissinfovideos
Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=swissinfovideos
Full story here Are you the author?
About Swissinfo
Swissinfo
SWI swissinfo.ch – the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Since 1999, swissinfo.ch has fulfilled the federal government’s mandate to distribute information about Switzerland internationally, supplementing the online offerings of the radio and television stations of the SBC. Today, the international service is directed above all at an international audience interested in Switzerland, as well as at Swiss citizens living abroad.
Previous post See more for 3.) Swissinfo Business and Economy Next post
Tags:

Permanent link to this article: https://snbchf.com/video/james-webb-glimpse-origins-the-universe/

1 ping

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.