My Science School

The Indian Space Research Organisation has been successful at developing space launch vehicles, building satellites, and launching them. But the space agency faced a glitch recently on the maiden journey of its Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). Let's see what an SSLV is.

As the name suggests, an SSLV is a small satellite launch vehicle capable of launching lightweight satellites. The ISRO's SSLV is 34 metres tall, weighs 110 tonnes, and is equipped to launch satellites weighing between 10 kg and 500 kg to low earth orbit (LEO), that is up to 500 km from Earth. Such lightweight satellites are also called mini, micro, or nano satellites.

The SSLV has been developed to cater to the emerging market for the launch of small satellites into Earth's low orbits by developing countries, students, and others. The SSLV is the third offering of the ISRO after the Polar Satellite Launch vehicle (PSV) and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The key features of the SSLV are low cost, flexibility in accommodating madtiple small satellites, possibility of multiple drop-offs launch-on-demand feasibility, and minimal launch infrastructure requirement On its maiden demonstration flight on

August 7, the SSLV carried an earth observation satellite (LOS-02), and a cube satellite developed by students, named AzandiSAY. The rocket was supposed to place the payloads into the desired 356 km circular orbit. But the satellites were instead placed in an elliptical orbit. It was said the rocket deviated from its path and placed the satellites into 356/76 km low earth orbit due to malfunctioning of a sensor. "As the 76 km elliptical orbit was the lowermost point and closer to the surface of the Earth the satellites placed in such an orbit will not stay for long due to the atmosphere and will come down. The (two satellites) have already come down from that orbit and are no longer usable according to ISRO Chairman S. Somanath.

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Smartphones have become ubiquitous. Whether you need it or not, there is an app for everything. And that has been made possible regardless of whether it is good or not-as we live in a hyper-connected world. Mobile networks have made it possible for us to access the Internet literally anytime, anywhere.

5G is the latest advancement in the telecommunications industry. The 5th generation mobile network is a new global wireless standard after 1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G networks. Designed for connectivity, 5G tech is expected to deliver higher speeds, have lower latency, greater availability and network capacity. affording uniform access, even in crowded areas.

Nearly one for every decade

While 1G delivered analog voices in the 1980s, 2G introduced digital voice in the 1990s. Early 2000s brought mobile data through 3G, and 4G came around in 2010s, ushering in the era of mobile broadband. Global operators started launching 5G networks, which is based on OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), in 2019, and it is expected to provide better connectivity than ever before.

All major phone manufacturers have started producing compatible handsets as 5G has been deployed in over 60 countries. With the buzz among consumers about even faster speeds and lower latencies, adoption too has been faster, when compared to 4G.

5G roll out in India

As for India, 5G is likely to be launched this year, with some expecting it to be rolled out as early as next month. Work on related hardware is already under way. thanks to the major telecom operators in the country - Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Vi.

The 5G spectrum auction in India has already been completed and it has been valued at Rs. 1.5 lakh crore. Initially expected to be rolled out in 13 cities, competitive pricing of 5G plans is expected in order to make it even more attractive.

Smartphones have become ubiquitous. Whether you need it or not, there is an app for everything. And that has been made possible regardless of whether it is good or not-as we live in a hyper-connected world. Mobile networks have made it possible for us to access the Internet literally anytime, anywhere.

5G is the latest advancement in the telecommunications industry. The 5th generation mobile network is a new global wireless standard after 1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G networks. Designed for connectivity, 5G tech is expected to deliver higher speeds, have lower latency, greater availability and network capacity. affording uniform access, even in crowded areas.

Nearly one for every decade

While 1G delivered analog voices in the 1980s, 2G introduced digital voice in the 1990s. Early 2000s brought mobile data through 3G, and 4G came around in 2010s, ushering in the era of mobile broadband. Global operators started launching 5G networks, which is based on OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), in 2019, and it is expected to provide better connectivity than ever before.

All major phone manufacturers have started producing compatible handsets as 5G has been deployed in over 60 countries. With the buzz among consumers about even faster speeds and lower latencies, adoption too has been faster, when compared to 4G.

5G roll out in India

As for India, 5G is likely to be launched this year, with some expecting it to be rolled out as early as next month. Work on related hardware is already under way. thanks to the major telecom operators in the country - Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Vi.

The 5G spectrum auction in India has already been completed and it has been valued at Rs. 1.5 lakh crore. Initially expected to be rolled out in 13 cities, competitive pricing of 5G plans is expected in order to make it even more attractive.

Picture Credit : Google 

 

On August 22, 1993, just days before the Mars Observer spacecraft was to enter orbit around Mars, it lost contact with the bases here on Earth. The $400 million spacecraft with an estimated overall project cost of $1 billion was designed to study and photograph the Martian surface, but ended in failure.

Following the success of the Mariner programme in the 1960s and early 70s, the Viking programme was the U.S.'s next foray towards our neighbouring planet, Mars. After the probes Viking 1 and Viking 2 successfully landed on the red planet in 1976, over a decade went by before America's next mission to Mars. That came in the way of the Mars Observer, which was launched in 1992 and had things going well until its ill-fated end.

The mid-1980s saw a high priority mission to Mars being planned to act and expand on the information already assimilated by the Viking programme. With the preliminary mission goals of studying and taking high-resolution photographs of the Martian surface, the Mars Observer spacecraft was initially to be launched in 1990, before being rescheduled to 1992.

Based on Earth-orbiting spacecraft

Based on a commercial Earth-orbiting communications satellite that had been converted into an orbiter for Mars, the spacecraft was built at a cost of $400 million. The payload was made up of a variety of instruments that included a Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS), Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer (PMIRR), Thermal Emissions Spectrometer (TES), Mars Observer Camera (MOC), and Mars Balloon Relay (MBR) among others.

The specific objectives of the mission were to find out the elemental characteristics of the Martian surface: defining Mars topography and gravitational field: establishing the nature of Mars magnetic field finding out the distribution and sources of dust and volatile material over a seasonal cycle: and exploring the Martian abmosphere. The MBR was designed to receive information from the planned Mars Balloon Experiment to be carried by a Russian mission for retransmission back to Earth.

Contact lost

The Mars Observer was expected to achieve all this by orbiting the planet for one Martian year (687 Earth days), giving it a chance to observe the planet through the different seasons. The science instruments in the payload were thus designed to study the geology, climate, and geophysics of Mars.

Following a successful launch on September 25, 1992, Mars Observer was scheduled to perform an orbital insertion manoeuvre 11 months later on August 24, 1993. Just days before it, however, on August 22, 1993, communication was lost with the spacecraft even as it was preparing to enter orbit.

When the Mars Observer failed to respond to messages radioed by the ground controllers here on Earth, further efforts to communicate were made-once every 20 minutes. Even though they were met with silence, further attempts were made, less regularly, until the mission was declared a loss on September 27, 1993 and no further attempts to contact were made after that

Propulsion system failure

In 1994, an independent board from the Naval Research Laboratory announced their findings regarding the failure. They suggested that the most probable cause of the communications failure must be a rupture of the fuel pressurisation tank in the propulsion system of the spacecraft

Regardless of what the reason was, an estimated cost of $1 billion, which included the price of the spacecraft along with the costs of space shuttle launching and processing of scientific data was lost. While the science instruments were reflown on two other orbiters, Mars Global Surveyor and 2001 Mars Odyssey, there is no telling if Mars Observer followed the automatic programming to go into Mars orbit flew by the planet, or even if it continues to operate.

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India, Belgium, Canada, Poland and Uzbekistan, have collaborated to build the International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT), India's first liquid mirror telescope and the largest in Asia. It is the world's first liquid-mirror telescope to be solely set up for astronomy and the only one of its kind to be operational anywhere in the world.

Located at Devasthal Observatory, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) in Nainital, Uttarakhand, the ILMT will observe asteroids, supernovae, space debris and other celestial bodies from an altitude of 2,450 metres.

Most telescopes use glass mirrors, but ILMT's mirror is made from a thin layer of liquid mercury that floats on 10 microns of compressed air and rotates every eight seconds. The rotation causes the liquid mercury to form a parabolic shape like a contact lens, allowing the telescope to focus light from deep space. The ILMT is fixed in a single position, so it only observes one strip of the night sky as the Earth rotates below it.

ILMT is the third telescope facility to come up at Devasthal, one of the best sites for astronomical observations, and will commence operations in October 2022.

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University of Florida scientists have grown Arabidopsis thaliana, belonging to the cauliflower family, in lunar soil known as regolith, collected from the Moon during the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions. NASA posted pictures of the experiment on Instagram with the caption: "To boldly go, we must boldly grow."

Arabidopsis seeds were added to moistened lunar soil along with a daily mix of nutrients. However, the plants in the regolith didn't grow as well as those grown in terrestrial soil. Some grew slowly and had stunted roots and leaves with a reddish colouring. They exhibited patterns seen in Arabidopsis under stress from growing in harsh environments, such as when there are too many heavy metals or salt in the soil. The plants grown in Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 regolith outperformed those grown in Apollo 11 soil, indicating that there could be pockets of richer regolith on the Moon.

The study demonstrates the possibilities of growing plants on the Moon. If plants could be a support system on the Moon or Mars, then future astronauts could grow their own food, thus River enabling them to stay for longer periods of time.

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If any of your WhatsApp contacts ask unnecessary questions, pass comments or misuse your profile photo, you can now hide it from them. First, make sure WhatsApp is updated on your phone (check the App Store or Google Play Store) or you won't see the new privacy settings. Go to Settings> Account > Privacy>Profile Photo. Choose 'My contacts except... Select the contacts from whom you want to hide your profile photo and tap on done/check mark. This takes you to the previous menu, where you can see how many contacts you've excluded. These contacts won't be able to see your current or upcoming profile photos either. (You can also hide Last Seen, Status and About info from specific contacts the same way.)

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Lumosity Mobile is a fun, interactive way to train your brain and learn how your mind works. The app's 50+ games and daily workouts test your cognitive skills and adapt as you improve. Categories for the games include: memory, attention, problem-solving, logic, math, words, flexibility and speed. Begin with a Fit Test to obtain your baseline, complete daily workouts and track your performance. The app gives you an analysis about your game strengths and weaknesses to see where you need improvement and monitor your progress. The app has been created by a team of scientists and university researchers on a mission to advance the understanding of human learning and understanding. Free for iOS and Android.

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GPods claims to be the world's first earbuds with light control. The Truly Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds offer users a personalized light-up experience unique to their mood, music preferences and style. Its six built-in LED lights change colour to match the beat of the music. From 72 basic colours, its Al can create around 300,000 colour combinations, ensuring that no two GPods owners are alike. Users can even take a photo and brings its colours onto their ears. Its software allows full control over dimness, brightness, rhythm response, shades and colours. Switch between Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency mode to eliminate external sounds or allow outside sound in so you can focus on what you're listening to or your surroundings. Music play, answering calls, light effects and noise blocking are controlled via touch. It has 20 hours of battery life and fast charging ensures it is ready anytime. The earbuds come with Bluetooth 5.2 and have IPx4 water resistance.

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Looking for a fun way to send messages to your friend and make their day? Notelt makes notes show up right on your friend's home screen. your live Two friends download the app and each creates an account. Each will be have to share their 'link code' with their friend who's also a Notelt user. Once both have entered the other's code and tapped the 'Link' button, their apps will update and they can start using it. Create a drawing or scribbled note; tools available include a marker, highlighter, pencil, eraser, ruler and lasso. Tap 'Save' when done, and just like that, the note is sent to your friend. Notes are viewable in the Notelt app and on the home screen (via the Notelt widget). Notelt is available for iOS and Android.

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On May 5, 1961, barely three weeks after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic orbit of the Earth, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard waited, strapped into the Freedom 7 spacecraft. He would become the first American in space. What NASA officials hadn't anticipated was that Shepard would have to endure five hours of delay cocooned in his shiny silver spacesuit before his 15-minute orbit.

"Man, I got to pee," he frantically radioed launch control. Allowing Shepard to urinate in his suit would destroy the medical sensors he was wired with, but eventually launch control had no option but to let him go. Shepard had to suffer the discomfort of a wet suit till the cooling system inside evaporated the liquid.

Early efforts

NASA hadn't solved the problem entirely even in 1963 when Gordon Cooper blasted off on the last Project Mercury flight. There was a urine collection device inside the suit, but the urine leaked out of the bag and the droplets seeped into the electronics, leading to a systems failure towards the end of the mission.

If wayward pee was a problem, think of what its twin, poop, could do in the cramped quarters of a spacecraft!

The Gemini project was launched to prepare men for the Apollo moon mission. In 1965, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman spent 14 days flying in Gemini 7, the longest manned mission at the time. They had to poop into a cylindrical plastic bag and add a substance to kill the bacteria and odours. Though the pee could be sent out directly into space through a valve-operated hose, the poo bags had to be stored in the craft till they landed.

By the time the Apollo missions came around, the system hadn't improved much. The Moon men's toilet ordeal lasted 45 minutes to an hour. They had to undress completely in a corner of the spacecraft and stick a faecal collection bag to their bottom. Low gravity meant that the poop wouldn't fall down. The astronauts had to manually help it along with a finger cot, a glove-like covering for a single finger. They also had to knead a germicide into it to prevent the growth of gas-forming bacteria that could cause the bags to explode.

Hit and miss

Accidents did happen. Houston once heard the commander of the 1969 Apollo 10 mission Tom Stafford say, "Give me a napkin quick. There's a turd floating through the air!"

On the first Space Shuttle mission in 1981, astronauts had to unclog smelly blocked toilets. Frozen urine ejected from the Russian Mir space station, damaged the station's solar panels over time, reducing their effectiveness by around 40%.

Today, on the International Space Station (ISS), each astronaut is given his or her own funnel for peeing. It attaches to a hose. Urine is sent through a filtration system and recycled into drinking water. There is a proper sit down toilet for more serious business. The waste is sucked into a canister, which is stored and later shot back towards Earth along with other trash, where it burns up in the atmosphere.

Did you know?

Astronauts go through 'positional training' on Earth to perfect their aim since the toilet on the ISS has a narrow opening. The mock toilet has a camera at the bottom. Astronauts don't actually go, but watch a video screen in front of them to check that their alignment is spot on. The toilet costs millions of dollars, so missing the target is not an option.

 During a spacewalk or an EVA (extravehicular activity), astronauts wear a maximum absorbency garment, which is essentially a large diaper.

NASA'S 2020 Lunar Loo Challenge, which invited designs from the public for compact toilets that would work well in both microgravity and lunar gravity received tremendous response. The Artemis program plans to land a man and the first woman on the Moon by 2024.

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A missing man formation is executed by the fighter pilots of a country's Air Force. It is an aerial manoeuvre that honours a colleague who has died or is missing in action. The manoeuvre is also carried out for astronauts and Heads of State.

The practice originated in World War I. Britain's Royal Air Force pilots returning from battle would fly in strict formation to alert the ground crew of their arrival. The ground crew recognised the formations and would note the missing aircraft. This warned them of the number of pilots who had been brought down.

The first pilot to be honoured with an official missing man formation was Baron von Richthofen, a German flying ace known as the Red Baron. Pilots put on a spontaneous flyby with a missing aircraft. By 1938, the U.S. and other countries had adopted the practice, and it became common at the funerals of high-ranking military or government officers and at commemorations of war events.

A missing man formation can either lack one plane or have a pilot pull away from it when flying over the site of the funeral or memorial.

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Many factors are taken into account while choosing a location for a site from where spacecraft are launched. Firstly, the launch site should be at a remote location as far away as possible from populated areas to reduce the chances of human fatalities on the ground in case of a rocket disaster. It is preferable if it is located next to a major water body such as a sea so that parts shed by flying rockets can fall into the open ???an.

The site should be accessible by land, air, and sea to avoid unnecessary transportation costs and delays. Scientists also prefer a site that has pleasant, mild weather conditions.

Launch sites are usually located near the Equator. Earth rotates from west to east. The surface velocity of the rotation is maximum (about 1600 km/hour) at the Equator. A rocket launched in the easterly direction from a site close to the Equator benefits greatly from the natural boost provided by the surface velocity of Earth's rotation. This cuts down the cost of rockets used to launch satellites that are destined for the geo-stationary orbit, which runs parallel to the Equator. Most launch sites such as the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana; Cape Canaveral in the U.S.: Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh; and Thumba in Kerala – are located near the Equator.

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The Internet of Things, or lot as it is popularly known, is becoming a very important part of not only the technology industry, but also our daily lives. And you may be using lot without even knowing it!

What is IoT?

IoT is nothing but the billions of physical devices that are all connected to the Internet. These devices can then be controlled and can communicate information without any help from humans.

The IoT connects "dumb" devices like refrigerators. washing machines or a kettle, to the Internet using software and makes them "smart" loT devices. These loT devices can now collect and exchange data around the world and have some digital intelligence!

Chatting with each other

With loT, devices or machines can talk with each other, or to the people who are controlling them, by messaging over the Internet. This means that these devices can tell other devices, as well as people, if something is wrong with them or they are functioning well.

For example, in loT a car will become smart and can communicate and tell you that it needs petrol.

This has become possible as Wi-Fi networks are very common and devices can now have software to allow Internet access and make use of the Wi-Fi connection. The IoT requires sensors and software to collect data and communicate.

A personal computer or a laptop is not usually considered an loT device. Neither is a smartphone, despite it having sensors.

Aeroplane engine

Large machines, like an aeroplane engine, maybe be filled with numerous smaller loT components and devices, with thousands of them relaying data back and forth and sensors gathering information to make sure it is running efficiently.

loT is here to stay to make your life even easier!

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On July 31, 2003, Austrian daredevil skydiver Felix Baumgartner created history by becoming the first flying human to cross the English Channel. A triumph of science, technology, and human will, this skydive was one of Baumgartner's many such feats.

The English Channel is a narrow arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the southern coast of England from the northern coast of France. Also called the Channel, it is among the busiest shipping areas on the planet. The English Channel is also the scene of one of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartners historic skydives.

Born in 1969 in Salzburg, Austria, Baumgartner found his destiny at the age of 16. Following his first skydive at that age, he was totally drawn to it and also took to extreme parachuting. He spent a few years with the Austrian military's demonstration and competition team, improving his aero-acrobatic skills, perfecting his parachute jumping and learning the art of landing on small target zones.

In the 1990s, Baumgartner also started doing base jumping, another dangerous sport that involves leaping off fixed objects and breaking the fall using a parachute. Base, in fact, is an acronym for the categories of objects from which the jump can be made: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and Earth (mountains, cliffs, etc.).

Scientific endeavours

Having built a reputation as a daredevil, Baumgartner sought to understand the limits of the human body and what we can achieve with it by training it. Apart from his desire to experience what nobody else had, he also saw his daredevil stunts as scientific endeavours, as they pushed the boundaries of our knowledge and know-how of various facets of his acts.

Before his flight across the English Channel, Baumgartner had already pulled off a number of firsts. In 1999, he completed the world's lowest ever base jump from the 30m-high arm of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In that same year, he set the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building by jumping off the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then the tallest building in the world.

Rigorous training

Baumgartner's next big feat was his flight over the English Channel, but he didn't just wing it. On the contrary, the intense preparations actually took three years and included rigorous training-such as strapping himself onto the top of a speeding Porsche to prepare himself for what his planned journey might entail.

Fitted with a specially designed six-foot carbon-fibre wing, an oxygen tank, and a parachute strapped to his back, Baumgartner wore a jumpsuit that was capable of withstanding a temperature of minus 40 degree Celsius. On July 31, 2003, just a little after five in the morning local time to avoid commercial flights, Baumgartner jumped off a plane above Dover flying at a height of 30,000 feet (9,000m). In the next 14 minutes, Baumgartner completed the first freefall flight across the 35km wide English Channel, before safely landing in Cap Blanc-Nez near Calais.

The flight wasn't without incident, right from the start. Lack of oxygen at the height at which they were flying before he jumped off meant that a cameraman who was following him passed out. When he jumped, his legs and glider got entangled forcing him to cut his glider into pieces.

Extreme cold

Reaching speeds up to 360 km/hour initially, Baumgartner admitted that it was stressful to cope with the initial extreme cold that he experienced. His jumpsuit came in handy, as the temperatures did reach minus 40 degree Celsius. For most of the freefall, he travelled at 220 km/hour.

Additionally, cloud cover meant that he could not see where he was going. As a result, he had to follow his two planes to get across the Channel without getting lost, holding the wing to direct himself.

At the end of his flight Baumgartner said that "it was total freedom" and that he loved every bit of his 35-km ride. While he admitted that this was his "biggest project so far. he also hinted at a "top secret" challenge that was in the works.

That turned out to be his Red Bull Stratos project nine years later. By jumping to the Earth from the edge of space in October 2012, Baumgartner broke a number of records and became the first person to break the sound barrier in free fall. Apart from being an impressive stunt watched live by millions on YouTube plenty of data was also collected from the sky dive. This led to important advances in research pertaining to space and the stratosphere, and helped surmount scientific challenges pertaining to safety equipment and spacesuits.

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The James Webb Space Telescope is an infrared observatory orbiting the Sun about 1 million miles from Earth to find the first galaxies that formed in the early universe and to see stars forming planetary systems

The James Webb Space Telescope took 30 years and $10 billion to build, has flown over 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth, and now, we can finally see the first glimpse of its power with a collection of images.

NASA has promised the deepest image of our universe that has ever been taken, and these first sets of images are only the first step in a long job of expanding our view of the universe.

When scientists planned and designed the Hubble Space Telescope, the most groundbreaking astronomical observatory of its era, there were many things about the universe they didn't know. One of these unknowns was that stars and galaxies existed already a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, Mark McCaughrean, senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Space Agency (ESA).

The technology has come a long way since Hubble's early years, and the James Webb Space Telescope project has been pushing it further along the way. 

"The detectors on JWST have 2000 by 2000 pixels. And we have lots of them," McCaughrean said. "We have many more infrared pixels [on JWST] than Hubble had optical pixels when it was launched."

So what exactly will all those pixels (in combination with all the other aspects of the mission that make it so ground-breaking) enable James Webb Space Telescope to do?

The James Webb Space Telescope's giant mirror will feed the light of stars and galaxies into four cutting edge instruments designed not only to take images, but also to analyze the chemical composition of the near and distant universe. This is done with a technique known as spectroscopy, which looks at how matter in the universe absorbs light. As different chemical elements absorb light at different wavelengths, astronomers will be able to reconstruct what stars, nebulas, galaxies and planets within James Webb's Space Telescope's sight are made of. 

"The James Webb Space Telescope instruments are a factor 10 to 100 [times] better than anything previously available," Randy Kimble, JWST project scientist for integration, test and commissioning at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told Space.com. "In some of those mid-infrared wavelengths, there's probably an advantage of 1,000 for some kinds of observations."

These improvements in the resolution of infrared imaging are critical for imaging the furthest reaches of the universe. Where the Hubble Space Telescope, or the recently retired infrared telescope Spitzer, could provide only a rough estimate of an ancient galaxy's age and chemical composition, Webb will deliver with precision, added Kimble, who previously worked on instruments for the Hubble Space Telescope, including the Wide Field Camera 3, Hubble's most advanced instrument, which was installed during the final servicing mission in 2009. 

Credit : Wikipedia

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