The Pillars of Creation - How The James Webb Telescope Unlocked The Secrets Of The Cosmos
Just finished reading "The Pillars of Creation - How The James Webb Telescope Unlocked The Secrets Of The Cosmos" by Ricard Panek, published by Little Brown.
Panek gives a short, comprehensive of how the Next Generation Space Telescope, which would eventually be named the James Webb Telescope was conceived five years before the Hubble telescope itself was finished. Panek takes us through the nerve-racking ons and offs of NASA and the U.S. Congress as the Webb came close to vanishing before it was eventually designed and built. Twenty-plus years into the 21st Century until it was finally launched.
It was astronomer Edwin Hubble who is quoted as saying that the history of astronomy is about receding horizons, and Panek aptly explores how the James Webb Space Telescope has expanded humanity's view of the universe.
Among the JWST's initial discoveries:
Nikku Madhusudhan used spectroscopic analysis in finding an exoplanet approximately 124 light‑years from Earth—with possible evidence of a molecule that would be a sign of life. "At their first viewing of a Webb spectrum, astronomers didn’t even have to know what they were looking at to know that it was extraordinary."
Dust is potentially a clue to one of the universe’s key growth mechanisms, but team leader Ori Fox and his postdoc Melissa Shahbandeh had to deal with dissenters who claimed there was not enough dust where they were searching. Yet stars in galaxies full of molecular gas and dust could be massive enough to burst into a supernova. "Webb’s studies of dust in galaxy after galaxy after galaxy spanning billions of light-years were, ultimately, a contemplation of our origins, on both a metaphorical and a literal level."
Rebecca Larson was sure she found a signal in noise—a break in the Standard Model? Everyone working on the Webb since it was launched already believed in the Standard Model of Cosmology, "the beginning of our universe." Now, less than a year later, headlines claimed the Webb had broken the Standard Model. "Even if Webb’s scientists didn’t get to break their own Standard Model, they couldn’t believe their good fortune. They got to be alive during the age of Webb."
A highly engrossing look at the James Webb Space complicated past and productive future.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
TEN STARS!
https://www.amazon.com/Pillars-Creati...
Panek gives a short, comprehensive of how the Next Generation Space Telescope, which would eventually be named the James Webb Telescope was conceived five years before the Hubble telescope itself was finished. Panek takes us through the nerve-racking ons and offs of NASA and the U.S. Congress as the Webb came close to vanishing before it was eventually designed and built. Twenty-plus years into the 21st Century until it was finally launched.
It was astronomer Edwin Hubble who is quoted as saying that the history of astronomy is about receding horizons, and Panek aptly explores how the James Webb Space Telescope has expanded humanity's view of the universe.
Among the JWST's initial discoveries:
Nikku Madhusudhan used spectroscopic analysis in finding an exoplanet approximately 124 light‑years from Earth—with possible evidence of a molecule that would be a sign of life. "At their first viewing of a Webb spectrum, astronomers didn’t even have to know what they were looking at to know that it was extraordinary."
Dust is potentially a clue to one of the universe’s key growth mechanisms, but team leader Ori Fox and his postdoc Melissa Shahbandeh had to deal with dissenters who claimed there was not enough dust where they were searching. Yet stars in galaxies full of molecular gas and dust could be massive enough to burst into a supernova. "Webb’s studies of dust in galaxy after galaxy after galaxy spanning billions of light-years were, ultimately, a contemplation of our origins, on both a metaphorical and a literal level."
Rebecca Larson was sure she found a signal in noise—a break in the Standard Model? Everyone working on the Webb since it was launched already believed in the Standard Model of Cosmology, "the beginning of our universe." Now, less than a year later, headlines claimed the Webb had broken the Standard Model. "Even if Webb’s scientists didn’t get to break their own Standard Model, they couldn’t believe their good fortune. They got to be alive during the age of Webb."
A highly engrossing look at the James Webb Space complicated past and productive future.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
TEN STARS!
https://www.amazon.com/Pillars-Creati...
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