The James Webb telescope cools down.
Souce
The James Webb Space Telescope continues with its preparations to start its scientific work, the last two achievements have been first, to reach almost absolute cold, to see the first galaxies, the light from such distant sources is extremely weak, therefore the telescope's instruments they must be cooled to -447 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 266 degrees Celsius.
The low temperature is necessary because the web's four instruments detect infrared light at wavelengths slightly longer than human eyes can see, distant galaxies, stars hidden in cocoons of dust, and planets outside our solar system emit light. infrared, very weak indeed, but so do other hot objects, including the web's own electronic and optical equipment.
This is why it is extremely important to cool the detectors of all four instruments and thus suppress the desired infrared emissions, another curious reason why the web jean detectors must be so extremely cold, is to suppress something called dark current or electrical current created by the vibration of the atoms of the detectors themselves.
Souce
This dark current can mimic a "real" signal on the detectors, giving the false impression that they have been hit by light from an external source, these false signals can drown out the real signals that astronomers want to pick up, because you have to remember that temperature is actually a measure of how fast the atoms of anything vibrate, the higher the temperature the more the atoms vibrate, and the lower the temperature the quieter the atoms are.
When we light a stove or a bonfire, what we do is give energy so that the atoms move more intensely, so we have to reduce the temperature to be able to reduce the vibration and thus be able to eliminate the dark current and so the detectors the james webb do not pick up false signals.
Souce
Reaching that extremely low temperature has been the first achievement of these days, the second achievement is to finish with the alignment of the telescope that is already complete and can now capture sharp and well-focused images as we can see in these images that have been taken to make the alignment test.
Thank you for visiting my blog. If you like posts about #science, #planet, #politics, #rights #crypto, #traveling and discovering secrets and beauties of the #universe, feel free to Follow me as these are the topics I write about the most. Have a wonderful day and stay on this great platform :) :)
Fantastic! Aliens aside, what are you excited about what this telescope is going to find?
Greetings... The unknown!
This is one of those situations where the Kelvin scale is advantageous to use.
That's right, absolute zero is best shown!!!
Yay! 🤗
Your content has been boosted with Ecency Points, by @jorgebgt.
Use Ecency daily to boost your growth on platform!
Support Ecency
Vote for new Proposal
Delegate HP and earn more