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A new space telescope to replace Telescope. Hubble's launch in 2018
The difference in the atmospheres of Earth and Venus i>
July 8 at the Royal Space Society состоялась presentation of a new space telescope , which should soon went on duty instead of the good old Telescope. Hubble. Space Telescope, the James Webb (James Webb Space Telescope, JWST), should go into orbit in 2018. It will examine the universe in the infrared range. According to the estimates of scientists, JWST will be able to discern the presence of some atmosphere of exoplanets.
Telescope "Kepler", the primary task is to search for extrasolar planets already found more than 2000. But they obtained the data on it can not say anything about the potential suitability for life of these distant worlds. Scientists were able to establish the atmospheric composition with several gas giant planets by analyzing changes in the starlight passing through its atmosphere. This measurement is made at the time the planet passes in front of the star.
But these changes are extremely difficult to trace - passes through the atmosphere only 1/10000 of the starlight. And to study with the help of existing tools small terrestrial planets and thus all the more unreal.
The new telescope JWST will be able to see the details of the atmospheric medium sized planets - though those that will revolve around stars, are less than those of the Sun brightness.
Astronomer Joanna Barstow explained during the presentation that, if we take the system, where they will attend a planet similar to Earth, and the planet, similar to Venus and the star of this system will cool red star, the JWST will be quite able to see the difference between these two planets. The fact that the earth has the ozone layer which is formed during the interaction of solar radiation and molecular oxygen. In the process of converting oxygen into ozone emitted characteristic signals that the new telescope will be able to detect.
Dr. Barstow explained that the telescope is not used only for monitoring the exoplanets - it exists a work in other areas of astronomy.
Initially the project JWST called "Space Telescope new generation," but in 2002 it was renamed in honor of the second head of NASA's James Webb (1902-1992), who headed the agency in 1961-1968.
"James Webb" will have a composite mirror 6, 5 meters in diameter and three times the diameter of the mirror "Hubble", with a collection surface area of 25 m 2 sup> and sun shield the size of a tennis court. The telescope will be placed in the L2 Lagrange point of the Sun - Earth.
JWST has not had time to go into orbit, and the tireless scientists уже offer a new project to replace it - a space telescope high resolution (High Definition Space Telescope, HDST) with a mirror diameter of 13 meters. Its main task will just be solely observation of exoplanets in order to find among them a potentially habitable worlds.
The comparative sizes of the mirrors of the Hubble, JWST and future proposed HDST i>
Source: geektimes.ru/post/253168/
