The phrase Pillars of Creation became popular in 1995 when it was used to describe a striking deep space photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The pillars are enormous formations of interstellar gas and dust in a star-forming region of the Eagle Nebula in the Serpens constellation, thousands of light years from Earth. At the time, Hubble represented the state of the art in imaging the universe, and the photograph a prime example of Hubble's powers.
But even before Hubble delivered its first images to humanity (famously compromised due to a flawed mirror that was corrected on a later servicing mission) after its 1990 launch, plans were already under way for its successor, originally dubbed the Next Generation Space Telescope but ultimately named for former NASA administrator James Webb.
After many delays, budget crises, and political battles, the James Webb Space Telescope finally followed Hubble into space in December 2021, and by the time it began to open its multifaceted, infrared-detecting eyes in mid-2022, it was already clear that it was not only going to be a worthy successor to the Hubble but surpass it in ways far beyond expectations — a fact brought home by Webb’s updated take on Hubble's famous "Pillars of Creation" image. Science writer Richard Panek's “Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos” lays out the brave new world of the just-dawned Webb era and how the instrument is already opening fresh astronomical and cosmological vistas.
Early in the book, Panek cites a 1936 quote from American astronomer Edwin Hubble: "The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons." As the man whose work a century ago was key in pushing back those horizons and showing that the universe is far bigger and grander than we thought, Hubble's words set the appropriate stage for Panek's tale. The Webb is just the latest example of how humanity's view of the cosmos has been expanding steadily with each new seeing tool, beginning when Galileo first turned a telescope on the skies in 1609. As ever-newer instruments push the horizons of astronomy ever farther out in space and ever further back in time, old questions are answered while new ones arise. "For the past four hundred years, each generation of astronomers has inhabited a new universe," Panek writes.
The Webb certainly supersedes Hubble in every respect. For starters, it's the largest space telescope ever sent into space, just under 70 feet long fully deployed and with a much larger 18-segment primary mirror (over 21 feet in diameter compared to Hubble's just under 8 feet) with more than six times the light collecting area — so large that it was launched folded up like an origami sculpture and unfurled in space. And unlike Hubble, which was placed in low Earth orbit to make it accessible for maintenance, the Webb lies much farther away, orbiting the sun about a million miles beyond Earth around what's called the second Lagrange point (or L2, to be precise), a spot where the gravitational forces of the Earth and sun are in balance and also keep the craft in an ideal spot to maintain an optimal temperature for operation.
Richard Panek lays out the brave new world of the just-dawned Webb era and how the instrument is already opening fresh astronomical and cosmological vistas.
Webb’s four astronomical instruments observe in the near- to mid-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing it to see much farther in space and further back in time than Hubble. And those are only a few of the superlatives the instrument evokes.
Panek allows that his book isn't trying to be a comprehensive account of the over three-decade, somewhat tortuous history of the Webb's conception, development, design, construction, and long-postponed launch; the political battles of budget, scheduling, administration, and international partnerships; the naming controversies over the telescope; or even all the science that the Webb is making possible. Instead, his aim is to provide a big-picture perspective of it all, to inspire an appreciation of "the human investment of intellectual and physical (and emotional) labor over the past four decades, and of the science that Webb has been producing at a nearly incomprehensible rate and in a nearly indigestible volume."
His approach is to start each of the book's six chapters with the people involved in a particular facet of the Webb saga — its planning, a particular research project, a problem looking to be resolved — before delving into explaining the science involved, and finally putting it all into broader context to demonstrate the value and significance of Webb's advances.
Each chapter also expands the reach of Webb's horizons, from its observations and discoveries close to home in our solar system (like detailed pictures of Neptune's ring system), to exoplanets (including the possible detection of the biomarker molecule dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b), to farther out in our own galaxy and beyond (such as a link between supernovae and interstellar dust), and finally to the earliest history of the universe (dark energy, dark matter, and a possible revision of cosmology's model of the universe).
It's an effective strategy, though it may seem somewhat scattershot to those looking for a deeper dive into the intricacies of the Webb's story. But it's largely successful in creating an awareness of the scientific and engineering marvel that the telescope represents, and why the Hubble, though it still soldiers bravely on beyond all expectations, is no longer top dog on the astronomical pile.
The book also features a color insert of some striking Webb images, with detailed descriptions. Panek's style is brisk, breezy, and rather lighthearted, perhaps sometimes a little too much so, but it makes for a quick and entertaining read that won't scare off those whose eyes glaze over at arcane technical details while pleasing more scientifically comfortable readers looking for a good overview of the mission. He uses novelistic touches to tell the story — snippets of dialogue here or a participant's ostensible thoughts there — gleaned from his interviews with the key players, which give the book a humanistic feel instead of a dry historical stuffiness.
The story of the James Webb Space Telescope is still in the very early stages of its planned official 10-year mission and hoped-for 20-year lifespan, and no doubt there are yet many wonders it will show us in the decades ahead. Yet, just as Webb was first conceived even before Hubble was launched, so Webb’s eventual successor — possibly called the Habitable Worlds Observatory, possibly something else — is already being imagined for the future generations of astronomers who may now still be in grad school or just gazing at the moon through their backyard telescopes.
The horizons of discovery never end — they just keep on expanding. As Panek notes, while whatever follows the Webb will “probably provide answers to questions nobody had thought to ask,” and the specific answers to those questions will vary, one question always remains the same: “What's next?”
This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.
