Sage-Tips

How much more powerful is James Webb vs Hubble?

With a mirror almost three times wider, JWST will be able to see objects almost nine times fainter than Hubble, allowing us to peer even further into space.

What advantage will the James Webb Space Telescope have over the Hubble space telescope in studying star formation?

Webb will view more energetic phenomena including forming proto-stars and very distant galaxies. Getting data with both telescopes on the same objects will build a more complete picture of the astrophysical processes.

Is the Webb telescope in space?

The James Webb Space Telescope is NASA’s largest and most powerful space observatory. The $10 billion space telescope will be the successor to the iconic Hubble Space Telescope. Webb will study several areas of astronomy and cosmology, gazing deep into the cosmos to study how the universe formed.

What is the James Webb telescope used for?

Webb is designed to look deeper into space to see the earliest stars and galaxies that formed in the Universe and to look deep into nearby dust clouds to study the formation of stars and planets.

How much more powerful will the James Webb Space Telescope be?

If everything is successful with the James Webb completion, launch, installation into its orbit, and deployment of its gigantic mirror array then the James Webb Space telescope will be about 8 (7.335) times more powerful than the Hubble and will be able to actually see the planets the Kepler is discovering if they were 50 times closer.

What is the size of the Hubble Space Telescope?

The telescope has an expected mass about half of Hubble Space Telescope’s, but its primary mirror (a 6.5 meter diameter gold-coated beryllium reflector) will have a collecting area about five times as large (25 m2 or 270 sq ft vs. 4.5 m2 or 48 sq ft).

What is the size of the Webb telescope mirror?

Webb will have an approximately 6.5 meter diameter primary mirror, which would give it a significantly larger collecting area than the mirrors available on the current generation of space telescopes.

What is the difference between Hubble and Webb?

Webb will primarily look at the Universe in the infrared, while Hubble studies it primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths (though it has some infrared capability). Webb also has a much bigger mirror than Hubble. This larger light collecting area means that Webb can peer farther back into time than Hubble is capable of doing.