How James Webb Space Telescope different from other telescope

The primary reason of placing telescope outside earth's atmosphere is to explore the galaxy in more depth. It also helps in getting more sharp images of planet, stars and other phenomenon taking place in the range of light years. The basic mechanism behind the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope, which works by reflecting the images of stars and planets can be understood better by taking example of time taken by light to reach the surface of earth. It took 8.3 minutes for photons emitted from the surface of sun to reach human eyes, which means that even if the sun vanishes in the mid-time i.e. before 8 minutes, we will be able to see the sun till the end of 8.3 minutes. In the same way the images of stars that we see today are the actual images that exist about billions light years ago.

List of outer telescopes other than James Webb Space Telescope are Spitzer space, Chandra X-ray, XMN, NuSTAR etc. Every new version of telescope launched in the outer earth comes with upgraded features than the old version. The name of James Webb Space Telescope is therefore a talk of now because of its more advanced features. The detailed features could be understood in more depth after comparing James Webb Space Telescope with Hubble Space Telescope.

Difference between James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope:

1. Size: In similar comparison with related to daily prospective, the size of Hubble Space Telescope is approx. the size of a school or city bus. But, James Webb Space seems to be much larger i.e. about the size of a tennis court.

2. Mirror: The mirror attached on Hubble spread over a single wide of about 2.4 metre. But, James carries eighteen hexagonal mirror with each width of 6.5 metre.

3. Light Absorption: Hubble has the ability to detect UV-visible light and also visualize the near-infrared light. But, James is more advanced in detecting both near and mid-infrared light.

4. Location: Hubble revolves near to the earth’s orbit and pointed at an altitude of 547 Km away from the ground. Alternatively, James is much far from earth, which is about 1.5 million Km away. Because of its large size and existence of heat sensible instruments inside the telescope, it is kept much farther from the sun. This region saves the telescope from the heat energy coming from the sun and lies at the shadow point of earth. The scientist has named this region as Lagrange 2.

5. Maintenance: Hubble is much nearer to earth’s surface so, it can be repaired or upgraded whenever necessary. Scientist do have deal with the maintenance in 1993 and repaired the parts of Hubble Space Telescope using Canadarm. The case is not the same for James Webb Telescope because its too far from the earth’s surface.

6. Mission details: Hubble scape will remain working as long as the instruments will remain in function. James Webb space mission was developed to remain in the space for 5 to 10 years. It is dependent on the lifetime of the propellant that can keep it stable in the space.

Final words:

The invention of telescope had open up the science in much broad aspects. There was a time, where exploring science outside the earth’s surface was an impossible task. But, now the advancement of technology with regular effort has brought an unimaginable change. Upgradation of space gadgets like James Webb Space telescope will help human in exploring many unbound mystery. The short lifespan of humans is no more a barrier to science. The research and projects of space around the world will definitely discover new scopes, the role of telescope is among those experiment for discover the existence of unknown in more depth.