Tucson Standard

University of Arizona issued the following announcement on Oct. 12.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which will look farther back in the history of the universe than any telescope before it, has arrived in French Guiana, where it will be readied for launch on Dec. 18. University of Arizona researchers will provide leadership for two of the instruments onboard.

The worlds largest and most complex space science observatory will now be driven to its launch site, Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, where it will begin two months of operational preparations before its launch. At the launch site, the telescope will be stowed folded inside the nose cone on top of an Ariane 5 rocket, designed to protect the space observatory from the air blast and the drastic drop in temperature as the rocket lifts off and leaves Earth behind in the span of a few minutes.

UArizona husband-and-wife researchers Marcia and George Rieke, who both have leadership roles in the James Webb Space Telescope, have worked toward this moment for two decades. However, because of the launch site's remote location, access to the site is extremely limited, and even the Riekes will have to attend the launch virtually with their research teams at UArizona.

Though it is often billed as the "successor" to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope – or Webb, as astronomers like to call it – is an entirely new and different beast, according to Marcia Rieke, a Regents Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory.

"The Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos," she said. "But with Webb, we'll be able to probe galaxies much closer to the Big Bang than ever before."

Marcia Rieke is principal investigator for the Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, which sits at the heart of the Webb Telescope. She led the development of the instrument, which was conceived to carry out the telescope's original purpose: to discover what astronomers refer to as "first light" galaxies at the moment of their formation in the very early universe.

"We can currently see galaxies back to 500 to 600 million years post-Big Bang, nearly 13 billion years ago," Marcia Rieke said. "And even though the universe was so young at that time, the things we see still look pretty familiar – lots of stars have formed, there are supermassive black holes, quasars and so on.

"However, logic dictates that at some point during the first few hundred million years, these familiar-looking objects must have come from somewhere and evolved," she explained. "After all, galaxies don't spring up from nothing, virtually overnight."

Her team will work with the Webb spectrometer team to peer into this formative stage of the familiar present-day universe. Because the universe is expanding, light from the earliest galaxies has been stretched, or "redshifted," from visible light into longer wavelength infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. NIRCam will be able to visualize infrared light, making the instrument essential to examining the early phases of star and galaxy formation, and studying the shapes and colors of distant galaxies. 

George Rieke, also a Regents Professor of Astronomy, is science team lead for the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, built by a consortium of European scientists and engineers and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. MIRI was added to Webb to expand the telescope's reach even farther into the infrared spectrum and enable many additional investigations. Two other instruments, supplied by the European and Canadian Space Agencies, round out Webb's scientific package.

The University of Arizona's leadership of two of Webb's core instruments is a family affair for the Riekes, but it also reflects the university's 60 years of leadership in infrared astronomy. The university's strength in this field allowed it to successfully compete for observing time on the new telescope. The combined time allocated by NASA to the two UArizona instrument teams and other UArizona astronomers accounts for 13% of the total observing time awarded, giving UArizona more time than any other astronomy center in the world.

"The university's contributions to the design and development of advanced instrumentation aboard the JWST is a testament to our bold, inventive approach to astronomy," said Elizabeth "Betsy" Cantwell, UArizona senior vice president for research and innovation. "This telescope has the potential to answer some truly wondrous and fundamental questions about the characteristics of faraway planets and the origins of the universe itself; I am confident it will transform our understanding of the cosmos, and proud of the role of University of Arizona researchers in that feat."

Original source can be found here.