just arrived from Mars, or been in the world of the Moon, who here on Earth was oblivious to Don’t look up, Netflix’s mega-hit – a priceless satire against science deniers. Against this group, there is only one advice: look up, literally. Never have advances in astronomy been more likely to reveal the secrets of the sky to us, and 2022 begins with the intense glow of two novelties. At the end of December, NASA launched the James Webb Telescope into space, and in 2024 the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will start operating.
The baptismal name, James Webb, is a tribute to a former director of the American space agency, one of the leaders of the operation which will lead to the lunar landing in 1969. It is a tool built to search for points 1.5 million kilometers away. of the Earth, at the edge of the observable universe. The result of a collaboration between American, Canadian and European professionals, at a cost of 10 billion dollars, the equipment is a hundred times more powerful than its famous predecessor, the Hubble. The James Webb is also much larger: it is the size of a tennis court (the Hubble was the size of a bus). The result, the result of its vastness: it is able to collect, with much more precision, seven times more light, which makes it possible to recognize still unknown galaxies. “Being outside the Earth’s atmosphere is a huge difference compared to ground-based telescopes,” says Roberto da Costa, a professor in the astronomy department at the University of São Paulo (USP). According to the specialist, air turbulence, temperature variations and weather conditions degrade the image quality of fixed, terrestrial equipment.
The James Webb entered orbit with major objectives. One is to study exoplanets, located outside the Milky Way. Humanity currently knows about 4,000 of them, and there are thought to be thousands more waiting to be identified – just look up, of course. Advances in this area could bring us closer to the search for hypothetical extraterrestrial life. And why not? Another fascinating point is the study of the origins of the universe. Today we can only see the Andromeda galaxy because we can see the light it emitted about 2.5 million light-years from Earth, a time when only the very ancient ancestors of the Homo sapiens inhabited the planet. With the approach that the telescope will allow, this analysis will obviously be reinforced.
Aiming high, as James Webb does when he takes a giant leap for humanity, is the fuel for smaller initiatives to take off as well – and, in that regard, Vera C. Rubin, a reference to the American astronomer pioneer in the study of the rotation curves of galaxies, occupies a place of choice. Your goal: to create the most detailed sky map in history. The laboratory will have a telescope equipped with a 3,200 megapixel digital camera, the largest ever built for astronomical purposes, capable of identifying a tennis ball from 25 kilometers away. The idea is for Rubin to take a complete picture of the Southern Hemisphere sky every three nights for ten years. At the end of this period, we will have an uninterrupted film of the universe and everything that moves in this celestial portion. It is a most precious window, a gift to civilization.
From 2023, the data collected will be public. “And then ordinary people can have a digitized version of the universe in their pockets,” says Mario Hamus, president of the Chilean Astronomy Foundation and winner of the 2015 Chilean National Prize for Exact Sciences. gold mine for society and, from its captures, we will be able to make countless discoveries in the years to come, without even leaving our homes. It is not an easy task, and it rewards a human adventure unique.
Man’s admiration for the sky is ancient. Who has never wanted to know if we were alone in the universe? Are there other planets of potential interest that we don’t yet know about? Where will the universe as we know it today come to an end? These are unanswered questions, and just having the chance to ask them, rooted in tech gems like James Webb and Vera C. Rubin, is spectacular. As Carl Sagan (1934-1966), the most famous popularizer of astronomy, said: “Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be discovered.”
Published in VEJA on January 19, 2022, issue 2772
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