At around seven o’clock in the evening on Thursday, November 4, Penn State Behrend Astronomy Professor Darren Williams delivered a lecture in the Burke Building on the James Webb Space Telescope, its challenges, its mission, and its future. He delivered a talk on the upcoming telescope because its launch is expected to be one of the most significant events in astronomy of the decade.

The James Webb Space Telescope’s launch is one of the most hotly anticipated events in astronomy, having been in the works for a number of years. According to Professor Williams, the project was first proposed in the early 2000s, shortly after the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, but its launch has been delayed several times over the years.  “It’s become something of a joke in the astronomical community, ‘oh, this will be the year that they finally launch James Webb.’ ,and it is looking like this is going to be the year that they finally launch it.” 

Professor Williams claimed that there were around 300 different failure points on the telescope, and that if the telescope failed, there would be no salvaging it because it would be too far from the Earth to send a crew to repair it. “If the gyroscopes fail [a possible technical failure], then the thing is a sitting duck, it is just floating there and you can’t rescue it,” said Williams.

However, he laid out a relatively optimistic view of the mission, saying that “They know where the failure points are and what to look out for,” Williams said. “They’ve been building it and designing it and preparing it for this mission for the last 20 years or so.”  

According to professor Williams, the James Webb telescope is going to “collect light in the near-infrared from some of the most distant objects in the universe.” These objects will include distant stars, galaxies, nebulas and potentially even planets. 

When a member of the audience asked Professor Williams how long he thought that the James Webb Space Telescope would last, he said that he “heard between six and 12 years, somewhere in that timescale.” However, he said that this is likely an underestimation designed to make people feel good about their investment, saying that, “That’s also what they were saying about Hubble; and Hubble’s been functioning perfectly. They always underestimate it, so that people aren’t disappointed- so that they feel they got their money’s worth.”