So I've got my bunny suit on, which protects
the space telescope from me, and any particles that may come off
of me. So we are at Northrop Grumman's Space Park in Redondo Beach
and we are going to see the James Webb Space Telescope. So let's go!
Right
now we are in a huge cleanroom, and like everyone else
we've got on bunny suits. And this is NASA's James
Webb Space Telescope.
This telescope was envisioned
shortly after Hubble's launch to continue on the next phase of questions
about our Universe.
It's going to look in the infrared spectrum of light and then seek the light of those really
early forming galaxies, and then try to answer the questions about
our Universe. And so what we're witnessing
right now is the two major halves of the telescope being
put together.
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What's really exciting about what's happening right now is that we're in the
final stages of construction. So above us you've got the optical portion of the
telescope, which has just been integrated with the other bottom half
the sunshield and the spacecraft bus, which is just below it.
But let's continue on! And coming around this side is the most spectacular
view of this whole thing, because you can see there are these
18 gold mirrors. They are real gold.
And the reason is because gold reflects infrared light the best.
Webb is going to try to solve the mysteries
of our solar system. It's going to look to worlds around
distant stars and then look at the mysterious structures and then try to
explain the origins of our Universe. And no project
like this can be done alone! So Webb is an international program.
It's led by NASA with its partners the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
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