You've probably seen images from the
James Webb Space Telescope, those
intricate portraits of deep space that
spark our imagination. But here on
Earth, a new groundbased observatory has
started capturing images that are every
bit as extraordinary. If you watched my
video in 2020 about the most exciting
telescope that nobody was talking about,
then you may remember just how thrilled
I am about the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
perched at top the Sero Pachchon
mountain in Chile. This observatory just
captured its first ever images with the
help from the largest digital camera
ever built. This camera, roughly the
size of a small car and weighing around
2,800 kg, boasts an astonishing 3.2
billion pixels per image. To put that in
perspective, it would take you about 385
4K televisions to display just one of
the photos from this telescope. That is
a staggering amount of data. In fact,
the survey can collect around 20
terabytes of data in a single night.
Since the observatory is located in
Chile and the data center is in the
United States, a dedicated 100 gabit
internet connection was built to connect
the facility to Miami, Florida, where it
taps into the existing infrastructure.
The first official images were released
in June 2025, and in my opinion, they're
among the most breathtaking astronomical
images I've ever seen. And this is just
the beginning. So, what do these first
images show us? How were they taken? And
what will astronomers be hoping to learn
from this ambitious project in the years
ahead?
I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
Astrom. Join me today as we unveil these
stunning images and explore how this
groundbreaking observatory could
transform our view of the universe.
Although some operations have begun,
final testing is expected to wrap up by
late 2025. And just as this facility is
destined to become a legend in modern
astronomy, it carries the name of a
woman who was a legend in her own right.
In the 1960s, when women were rarely
seen in astronomy, Dr. Rubin was
credited with discovering the first
compelling evidence for the existence of
dark matter. And she did so while
balancing both her career and
motherhood. It's fitting that such a
pioneering observatory bears the name of
an equally pioneering astronomer. And
like its namesake, the Reubin
Observatory will not disappoint. Part of
what makes images so crisp from space
telescopes like Hubble and Web is their
vantage point from outside of Earth's
atmosphere. From space, they are able to
avoid the distortion of weather and
light pollution, issues that typically
plague groundbased telescopes. That's
exactly why the Reuben Observatory was
built on a mountain in the Atakama
Desert of Chile, giving it one of the
best observing locations anywhere on
Earth. It's extremely dry air and dark
skies make for the perfect conditions
for groundbased astronomy. And the new
observatory isn't alone. The area is
also home to several other observatories
including the Southern Astrophysical
Research Telescope, the Gemini South
Observatory, the Giant Mellan Telescope,
and the European Extremely Large
Telescope. This location has proven
itself time and again as an exceptional
observing spot. Interestingly, the
Reuben Observatory isn't run by a major
space agency like NASA or ESO. Instead,
it's funded by the United States
National Science Foundation and
Department of Energy and is managed by
the Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy. Inside the Reuben
Observatory is the Simony Survey
Telescope, which became the seventh
largest telescope in the world when it
was completed. Its primary mirror spans
8.4 m with a 3.5 m secondary mirror. But
size isn't everything. What makes it
truly unique is its third 5 m mirror.
Most telescopes use a two mirror system
to focus light and correct optical
distortions that can come from the curve
of the mirror, but the Simony survey
telescope uses three, giving it an
extraordinarily sharp view. Attached to
the end of this powerful telescope is an
equally impressive camera to record what
the telescope sees. It's the largest
camera ever constructed, measuring about
3 m long and 1.6 m wide, designed to
capture ultraviolet, visible, and near
infrared light. It uses a robotic arm to
place filters in front of its sensors.
Named after the legacy survey of space
and time, or the LSST,
the camera will support this decadel
long sky survey. The LSST camera is made
up of 189 individual sensors and
outfitted with three large fused silica
lenses. Each exposure covers 10 square
degrees of the sky, giving it superb
optical performance.
That is quite a wide angle of
visibility. One single image can capture
an area of the sky equal to about 45
full moons. If you compare these stats
to previous surveys like the Sloan
Digital Sky survey, the LSST is
essentially doing every 3 days what SDSS
took 20 years to do. SDSS steadily built
up a map covering 35% of the sky over
its 20-year run. But the LSST can map
the entire visible sky in the southern
hemisphere or 50% with every 3day scan.
The 10-year duration of the LSST is not
strictly to cover a wider area of the
sky, but to map our cosmos in a temporal
dimension, building up a searchable
time-lapse movie of the changing sky and
tracking its changes over time like
never before.
Like any sky survey, the LSST is meant
to look for anything and everything in
the night sky. However, it does have
four main scientific goals. To
investigate dark matter and dark energy.
To catalog solar system objects like
asteroids and comets. To monitor
transient events like supernova,
variable stars and gammaray bursts. And
to map the stars of the Milky Way.
Surveys like Gaia, Panstars, Desi, and
Sloan paved the way. But Reuben will
take things further. For example, it's
expected that data from Reubin will
allow us to identify millions of new
asteroids, vastly expanding our catalog
and creating a data set unlike anything
we've ever had before. Luckily for us,
we won't have to wait 10 years to see
what this new observatory has in store.
The LSS team will release images
throughout the project, letting the
world follow along as discoveries
unfold.
As mentioned earlier, the first of these
images were released just in June 2025.
And I think you're going to love them.
After just over 10 hours of test
observations, the Reuben Observatory had
already captured cosmic phenomena on an
unprecedented scale. millions of stars
and galaxies, thousands of asteroids,
and these images represent just a small
preview of what's to come. What you are
now seeing is one of the first images
ever released by the Reubin Observatory.
Dubbed the Cosmic Treasure Chest, made
up of 1,185
exposures taken over seven nights, it
shows a region in the southern Virgo
cluster about 55 million lighty years
away. It's the closest large cluster of
galaxies to our own.
This 25 square degree mosaic reveals an
astonishing variety of stars and
galaxies. It combines multiple exposures
of the same area, each taken at
different times and with different
filters to reveal faint details that may
otherwise go unseen. Let's zoom in to a
few highlights. In the upper left, two
prominent spiral galaxies dominate the
view with a trio of merging galaxies
just above them. Threads of material
stretch between them, and both nearby
and distant galaxy groups populate the
scene along with a few foreground stars
from our own Milky Way.
On the opposite side of the image is an
extraordinarily dynamic area nicknamed
cosmic drama. Here, bright stars from
our galaxy shine in the foreground with
dozens of nearby galaxies clearly
visible and a distant sea of reddish
galaxies forming a speckled backdrop.
This image contains some 10 million
galaxies and that represents just 0.05%
of the 20 billion galaxies that the
Reuben Observatory is set to observe
over the next decade.
Another early image is this striking
mosaic of two nebula taken over just 7
hours and made up of 678 individual
images. In a single exposure, the dust
and clouds that make up these nebula may
be faint or invisible, but by combining
hundreds of exposures, these details
become clearer. At the center of the
mosaic is the Lagoon Nebula or Messia 8.
Situated about 5,200 light-years from
Earth. This kidney bean-shaped pink area
is one of only a few star forming nebula
that are visible with the naked eye,
although faintly in mid-n northern
latitudes.
If you were to look at this nebula
through a telescope or binoculars, you
would see what looks like a spot of
grayscale clouds. This is because the
human eye can only detect certain
wavelengths of light, but the Reuben
Observatory is able to capture a broader
range. These additional wavelengths can
be added into the picture as different
colors. For example, in this image, the
infrared light typically associated with
cooler objects is assigned the color
red, while the warmer ultraviolet
wavelengths are assigned to blue. For
comparison, here is an optical image of
the same Lagoon Nebula taken by NASA's
Hubble Space Telescope in 2018. As you
can see, the Hubble image is rich in
detail and similarly uses various added
colors to represent information that the
human eye can't see on its own. In this
case, the colors represent different
particles detected across the image. You
might also notice that this Hubble image
is very close up. It's only about four
light years across. However, the Reuben
Observatory gives a much wider view of
the Lagoon Nebula. In fact, the
difference is shocking. The Lagoon
Nebula is a staggering 55 light-year
across and 20 lighty years tall, yet
takes up only a fraction of the Reuben
image. Why is there such a difference?
Well, Hubble is designed to focus on
individual objects. With its 2.4 4 m
primary mirror. It can capture 16.8
megapixel images of individual objects.
But the Reubin Observatory's 8.4 m
primary mirror and 3.2 billion megapixel
camera were built to photograph gigantic
sections of the sky in exceptional
detail.
Hubble's field of view is able to see
the equivalent of about 1% of our moon's
surface area in a single image. But
Reubin has a field of view wide enough
to see over 40 times the moon's surface
area in one exposure. That means the
Reuben Observatory can photograph 4,000
times the area of the sky that Hubble
can in a single image. That's part of
what makes it so special. Let's take
another look at the Reubin Mosaic image.
Not only does this wide field of view
show the entire Lagoon Nebula, but we
can also identify several other objects.
At the top, you can spot a swarm of blue
lights. This is an open star cluster
known as Messia 21. Just below that, the
pink and blue glow of the Trifffid
Nebula, also known as Messia 20, sits
about 9,000 lighty years away in the
constellation Sagittarius and can
sometimes be spotted with small
telescopes.
Directly below that is another open star
cluster known as Boam 14. And towards
the bottom center of the mosaic image is
a tightly packed globular cluster known
as NGC6544
which is home to tens of thousands of
stars. The sheer number of stars and
galaxies visible in these images is
staggering. And to think that on the
larger mosaic image, this globular
cluster is just a tiny speck. And it's
not just pretty images. The Reuben
Observatory is already producing real
scientific results. In just about 10
hours, the observatory was able to
identify 2,14
asteroids in our solar system that had
never been seen before, including seven
near Earth asteroids, which you'll be
happy to hear pose no threat to us. For
comparison, about 20,000 new asteroids
are identified every year through the
combined efforts of all other ground and
space-based observatories. Reuben alone
is expected to discover millions of new
asteroids within its first 2 years of
operation.
It may also be our best tool yet for
spotting interstellar visitors passing
through the solar system like Amuam Mua
or two I Borisov.
Astronomers estimate that interstellar
visitors like these pass through our
inner solar system about once a year,
but we've only recently gotten survey
telescopes capable of spotting them,
like the Pan Stars 1 and now the Reuben
Observatory.
And that's not all. The observatory also
spotted 46 subtly pulsating stars known
as RR R Lray stars, a type of ancient
pulsating star that are often used to
measure distance. Over the course of the
survey, Reuben is expected to find up to
100,000 more of these stars, with some
potentially stretching more than a
million lighty years from Earth. By
finding these stars, Reubin can help
astronomers to map the outer reaches of
our Milky Way and explore its structure.
In the first year alone, Reubin will
collect more optical data than all
previous observatories combined. By the
end of the survey, it's expected to
generate around 500 pabytes or 500,000
terabytes of data containing billions of
objects and trillions of measurements. a
true gold mine for researchers. Once
final testing is complete, the Reuben
Observatory will repeatedly scan the
southern sky, capturing fleeting cosmic
events in real time while building a
decade long time lapse of the universe.
I don't know about you, but I am already
blown away by these early images, and
the real survey hasn't even started yet.
I can't wait to see what comes next. If
you like this video, there is another
exciting telescope that has just begun
work, Uklid. Check out its first light
images here. And if you'd like, you can
explore Reubin's images for yourself by
visiting skyviewer.app.
It's a lot of fun to zoom in on some of
these images. I'd highly recommend it.
If you've loved the latest James Web
space images, you need to see what I'm
about to show you.
's Uklid Space Telescope has sent back
its first batch of images, and they're
some of the best space pictures I've
ever seen. Known as Uklid's first light,
this photo collection is a dazzling tour
of the universe's galaxies, and
scientists are freaking out at what they
are seeing. Ukuids photos call into
question our ideas of how the universe
evolved, give new insight into the role
of dark matter in structuring the
cosmos, and even let us peer into the
past by capturing galaxies 10 billion
lighty years away. Plus, the photos
themselves are just awesome, especially
the last one.
I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
Astramm. Join me today on a tour of what
Uklid has captured so far. From
glistening galaxies and swirling nebula
to star nurseries and even rogue
planets. Let me show you why Uklid is
such a unique telescope and how
scientists plan to use its data to
unlock the origins of the universe.
On the 1st of July 2023, the European
Space Agency launched the Uklid
telescope from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
After traveling about 1.5 million km, it
joined its siblings, the Gaia and James
Webb telescopes in orbit around the
Lrangee point 2. This location is ideal
for studying and imaging deep space. It
allows telescopes to keep the sun, moon,
and earth behind them at all times so
that they never interfere with
observations. It's also close enough to
Earth that communications are easy.
Since L2 keeps pace with Earth's orbit
around the sun, we stay close to our
instruments.
Uklid's 6-year mission is designed to
explore the composition and evolution of
the universe. It will do this by
building the largest and highest quality
3D map of the cosmos we've ever seen. In
October 2024, Uklid started sending back
the first pieces of this map, and I'll
show them to you in a second. As Uklid
continues to scan the sky over the next
years, scientists hope the new data will
help them understand the role of gravity
and dark matter in the structure and
expansion of our universe.
First, you need to understand three
things that make this telescope and its
pictures so unique. Firstly, Uklid's
ultra wide lens captures more of the sky
at once than any telescope ever has. It
gathers highresolution light data from
billions of galaxies, some as far away
as 10 billion lighty years away.
Compared to groundbased surveys, it has
four times the resolution and 15 times
the sensitivity in the near infrared. It
can also spot objects hundreds of times
fainter than the ones Gaia can detect.
In a single observation, Uklid records
vast cosmic structures and precise
details of individual galaxies. The
result, an image that conveys multiple
cosmic scales at the same time, bringing
home details in a way that makes
researchers giddy.
Secondly, Uklid measures subtle
distortions in galaxy shapes caused by
dark matter's gravitational influence,
creating a gravitational lensing map.
This is key to understanding how galaxy
clusters grow and evolve while also
showing us how dark matter has played a
role in literally shaping the universe.
And finally, Uklid is creating a 3D map
of the universe with two advanced
instruments. The visible imaging system
captures ultrasharp images in visible
light to measure galaxy shapes and
positions while the near infrared
spectrometer and photometer measures red
shifts placing galaxies in 3D space. In
short, Uklid is kind of a big deal. The
hype in the astronomical community
around these images is real. As summed
up by one Uklid project scientist, we
have never seen astronomical images like
this before, containing so much detail.
They are even more beautiful and sharp
than we could have hoped for, showing us
many previously unseen features in
well-known areas of the nearby universe.
So, let me take you on a tour through
Uklid's first light images, one by one,
starting with our map.
Thanks to ISA's Gaia and Plank missions,
we already have a pretty solid map of
our Milky Way, Uklid is tasked with
gathering data on the dark parts of the
map. So far, it has covered about 1% of
the map it was sent to create. Between
the 25th of March and the 8th of April,
2024, Uklid took 260 pictures of the
southern sky, covering an area 500 times
the size of the full moon we see from
Earth. Putting these images together,
scientists created a mosaic spanning
millions of stars and galaxies. And
remember, this is just 1% of what it's
planning to do. Because Uklid captures
both big picture and detailed data at
the same time, researchers can see the
sky at different scales. From
extragalactic views, we can zoom into
the galaxy clusters, their core, and
even individual galaxies.
So, let's explore some of these cosmic
structures. Starting with one of the
biggest known in the universe.
This is the Perseus cluster located 240
million lightyear from Earth. This image
shows over 1,000 Perseus cluster
galaxies and more than 100,000 faraway
galaxies in the background. Scientists
think the way galaxies are organized can
tell us a lot about the distribution of
dark matter and dark energy. You see,
gravity might cause dark matter to
organize itself into filaments. We
aren't sure, but NASA scientists believe
it's possible that where these filaments
intersect, galaxies stick closer
together, forming a cluster. The theory
goes that if there were no dark matter,
galaxies would be distributed evenly
throughout the universe, which obviously
isn't the case. While many galaxies in
the Perseus cluster are already known,
cosmological simulations predict there
should be several dwarf galaxies there,
too. If we could see those faint
galaxies, we could analyze their shape
and distortion relative to the cluster
and background to determine how dark
matter is distributed. The problem is
these dwarf galaxies tend to be
overshadowed by older stars shining
infrared light. So they've evaded direct
observation until now. Uklid discovered
more than 630
previously unknown dwarf galaxies which
is a huge breakthrough in the study of
dark matter.
More than dark matter, Uklid is also
teaching us about star formation too.
Let's go to our next destination and
I'll show you.
Say hello to Ireular Galaxy NGC 6822.
Shining bright 1.6 million lighty years
away. It was first identified as a
remote stellar system by Edwin Hubble in
1925.
Now almost 100 years later, Uklid is
sending back highresolution images of
the entire galaxy and its surroundings.
The James Webb Space Telescope did also
image this galaxy a few years ago, but a
much narrower field of view. Scientists
are interested in Uklid's wide-angle
photos of this galaxy or what they might
tell us about star formation and the
early universe. You see, stars smash
lighter atoms like hydrogen and helium
together to produce heavier atoms,
including metals. This process happens
across a star's lifespan and is why we
don't see many heavier elements in the
early universe because they take time to
accumulate.
Surprisingly, many of the stars in NGC
6822 have very low levels of metal
atoms. By studying low metallicity
galaxies like this one, scientists hope
to learn more about how galaxies evolved
in the early universe. Uklid has made
that a monumentally easier task thanks
to the color information from his NISP
instrument and its wide field of view.
Uklid has also revealed several
previously unknown globular star
clusters and H2 regions in this galaxy.
H2 regions are the colorful gas clouds
we see here. When stars are born, they
emit light so strong and bright that it
ionizes the hydrogen gas surrounding
them, resulting in these H2 regions.
Studying these will help us better
understand the cloud properties at the
time a star is born and what conditions
are needed for massive star formation.
Speaking of globular clusters, here's
one in a different part of the sky.
Globular cluster NGC6397
is 7,800 lightyears from home, making it
the second closest one to us. This image
is one part of a wider image from Uklid,
which I'll show you in a little bit.
Globular clusters are kind of like
Hollywood, a high concentration of stars
in one place where everyone is trying to
outshine everyone else. What does this
mean? The smaller, dimmer stars get
drowned out by the bigger, brighter
ones. On top of that, they extend quite
a long way out from their center with
the radial parts mainly made up of low
mass faint stars that until now have
been hard to see. Ironically, it is
these faint stars that hold the most
scientific interest for unlocking the
history of the Milky Way. As David
Masadri of the National Institute for
Astrophysics in Italy puts it, currently
no other telescope than Uklid can
observe the entire globular cluster and
at the same time distinguish its faint
stellar members in the outer regions
from other cosmic sources.
Hubble actually imaged the center of
this cluster in 2021, but to image the
entire cluster, including the sprawling
outskirts like Uklid did, would have
taken it far too much time and
resources. On the other hand, Uklid
snapped this shot in just 1 hour and it
is absolutely beautiful both
aesthetically and scientifically.
Sometimes we see stars arranged like
this and sometimes we see them arranged
as spiral galaxies. Yet despite living
in one, we don't actually know how they
maintain their shape. The next Uklid
pictures aim to help answer those
questions.
Coldwell 5, also known as the hidden
galaxy, is hard to observe because it
lies in the busy disc of our Milky Way
about 11 million lighty years away. It
tends to get overshadowed by dust, gas,
and other stars.
It is considered a lookalike galaxy to
our own, which makes it a prime point of
interest for researchers. It's pretty
hard to study a galaxy you're inside of
since you only get to observe it from
one plane.
Uklid's near infrared instrument was
able to pierce through the dust and
reveal the galaxy in all its glory.
We've captured it before from the
ground, but with nowhere near the detail
Uklid manages. The Uklid image might
look normal, as if every telescope can
make such an image, but that is not
true. What's so special here is that we
have a wide view covering the entire
galaxy, but we can also zoom in to
distinguish individual stars and star
clusters. We can trace the history of
star formation and better understand how
stars formed and evolved over the
lifetime of the galaxy, says Uklid
consortium scientist Leslie Hunt.
We still don't fully understand how
spiral galaxies maintain their structure
or the role dark matter plays in forming
them. Uklid's ability to capture this
galaxy's sprawling spiral arms and dust
lanes in such detail will help
scientists understand the link between
dust, gas, and star formation on a large
scale in a way we've never been able to
before.
Sadly, we've only got one more stop on
this cosmic tour, but I've saved you the
best for last. Let's see what these
colorful clouds are hiding.
Our fifth and final photo shows the
Horse Head Nebula. It has been
photographed by various telescopes
before, but never with such a sharp and
wide view as Uklid managed. Again, this
shot was taken in just 1 hour, which is
absolutely mind-blowing. It's like
someone just stopped at a viewpoint and
snapped the picture. Located
approximately 1,375
lighty years away, this is the nearest
massive star forming region. It lies
just south of Alnitak, the easternmost
star in Orion's three star belt, and is
part of the expansive Orion molecular
cloud. It is in this swirling nebula the
scientists hope to find evidence of many
previously unknown Jupiter mass planets.
One such planet has already been
identified. Sori 62, a young planet 10
times the mass of Jupiter and a
temperature of 1,200°
C.
The clouds behind the Horsehead Nebula
are illuminated by UV radiation from
nearby star Sigma Orionus. While the
clouds of the Horsehead Nebula itself
are made up of cold molecular hydrogen,
which gives off barely any heat or
light, this makes the Horsehead Nebula
an interesting place to learn more about
star formation, as scientists can
observe and compare how stars form in
dark versus bright clouds.
Sigma Orionus is part of a group of
stars called an open cluster, which
researchers hope to get a more complete
picture of with Uklid's data. For
example, free floating planets have been
known to exist in Sigma Orionus, but
with Uklid's ultra high sensitivity,
scientists found many smaller FFPs than
were previously documented. As one
research paper put it, FFPs in that zone
appear to be ubiquitous and numerous.
And this is just the beginning. With
another five and a half years of mission
time left, Uklid still has a lot of
ground to cover. Along the way, the data
and images it collects will be pivotal
to helping scientists unravel the
mysteries of dark matter, dark energy,
and the origins of stars, galaxies, and
the universe itself. A 3D map of the
distribution of dark matter could be
revolutionary to our understanding of
fundamental physics. Until then, we'll
just have to entertain ourselves with
more images as they come out.
Thanks for watching. If you like this
video, you may like my other videos on
space tech and innovation. Did you hear
about Jax's precision landing on the
moon? It has the potential to catapult
us into a new era of planetary
exploration, but it didn't totally go
according to plan. Click here to watch
it now, and I will see you next time.
For those of you that don't know, the
James Web Space Telescope is going to be
the successor to the Hubble Space
Telescope.
An ambitious project, it aims to have a
mirror with a combined surface area of
25 m, which is roughly 5 times bigger
than Hubble's.
Developments for it began in 1996 with
an original launch date of 2007, but
this date has continuously been pushed
back. From the time of writing this
script, the scheduled launch date is in
March 2021.
But what's the holdup? What is taking so
long for this telescope to get into
operation? Well, it's complicated.
Literally.
I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
Astramm. And together we will understand
why the James Web Space Telescope is
taking so long.
First of all, let's have a quick
overview to this magnificent piece of
engineering.
The telescope features 18 hexagonal
segments made of goldplated burillium.
They combine to make a 6.5 m mirror, the
biggest that has ever been in space by a
long shot.
There is a very good reason for having
such a big telescope in space, namely
that in the vacuum of space, there is no
atmosphere to get in the way of
observations made by the telescope.
If you have a look at videos taken by
groundbased telescopes, you can see that
there's a slight wobble to the image.
This is due to the heat in the
atmosphere, much like if you looked at a
road on a hot day.
That's not to mention all the dust and
other particles in the atmosphere
reflecting and refracting light, which
interferes with telescope observations.
Technology is improving to counteract
atmospheric influences on groundbased
telescopes, but you just can't replace
actually being in space.
The other big reason for having the
James Webb Space Telescope in space is
that it is an extremely sensitive
infrared telescope and in this way it is
different from Hubble which is only
capable of looking in visible light and
ultraviolet.
In fact, the James Web Space Telescope
is more like the Spitzer telescope,
another space telescope, but with a much
smaller mirror only 85 cm across.
Seeing as any warm object emits infrared
radiation,
a groundbased telescope would easily
have its readings contaminated by nearby
objects and the atmosphere.
In the vacuum of space, however, the
James Web Space Telescope is protected
from the sun by this massive sunshield,
which means the scientific instruments
stay a cool minus 220°.
Such a big infrared telescope will mean
we can look back in time billions of
years to just a few hundred million
years after the Big Bang. This will give
us an insight into the formation of the
universe like never before.
The James Webb telescope will also look
at individual stars and even attempt to
observe exoplanets
specifically to try and see the
composition of their atmospheres.
They do this by looking at the light
spectrum of planets as its parent star
shines through the planet's atmosphere.
So, what's been the holdup over all
these years?
Well, the biggest delays were caused by
the design specifications themselves.
For instance, the mirrors.
There is no launch craft that could fit
a 6.5 m wide mirror inside. So, the
mirrors had to be designed in a way that
allowed them to be folded back during
launch. This adds a massive amount of
complexity to the design as 18 hexagonal
mirrors aimed at an object billions of
light years away means that they must be
aligned correctly to nanometer
precision.
As a result, not only do the mirrors
fold out once launched, but each mirror
can be controlled individually to a very
fine degree.
The other design challenge with the
mirror would have been the weight of it.
To use a mirror similar in weight to the
one on Hubble would have meant the James
Web's mirror would be 10 times heavier
than it is now. Too heavy for a
launchcraft to get it to its final
destination.
So engineers used a groundbreaking
design, a brilliant mirror that is light
but also strong and plated with gold for
the reflective surface.
Incredibly, with this design, each
mirror segment only weighs 20 kg.
You might wonder then, why don't they
always use burillium?
Well, it is actually a very difficult
metal to polish and designers needed
this mirror to be smooth to within
nanome.
This adds a layer of difficulty to the
building process.
Brillium also isn't ideal for reflecting
infrared light.
But gold is you may look at these
mirrors and think, "Oh, wow. How much
gold is on them?" Well, actually, not
much gold at all. Less than 3 g in
total.
How did they get such a fine layer of
gold on these mirrors? Well, the
technique they used is pretty ingenious.
The mirror is inserted into a vacuum
chamber and some gold is vaporized into
the chamber.
The gold in this vapor form fills the
chamber and condenses on all the
surfaces, including the mirror itself.
This gold condensation gives an
extremely even finish, something that
couldn't be accomplished through any
other method.
One of the other key design
specifications of the James Webb Space
Telescope was to be able to view
hundreds of objects simultaneously.
The way that they will achieve this is
through some groundbreaking innovations
invented specifically for James Web.
But this technology will go on to
benefit many other sectors like
biotechnology, medicine, and
communication.
Specifically, it is an array of micro
shutters that can measure the intensity
and spectra of light from many distant
individual objects at the same time.
While spectroscopic technology isn't
new, the ability to see up to 100
objects at the same time is this is an
example of the data it will collect.
Each band is an individual shutter
spectroscopy reading.
Each shutter is also amazing in that it
is only the width of a few human hairs.
More bespoke devices that had to be
designed specifically for this telescope
were the infrared camera sensors.
These are state-of-the-art, the biggest
and most sensitive infrared detectors to
ever be made. There will be three
different detectors, each for different
wavelengths in the infrared.
They are very advanced in that they
don't just take one sample per pixel,
but several, meaning they can reduce
noise and sense if a cosmic ray hit the
pixel and can cancel it out.
Another design issue they had to deal
with was excess heat. As I mentioned,
infrared telescopes are extremely
sensitive to heat, even heat generated
by the telescope itself. There is a
radiator designed into this side to
enable the telescope to radiate any heat
it generates itself as the instruments
need to be cold - 220°
cold.
One of the instruments aboard the James
Webb telescope MIRI requires even colder
temperatures. It can only operate at 7
Kelvin or -266°.
This means it needs its own cryocooler,
which is basically a pipe filled with
cold helium that flows by the instrument
from a pump at the bottom of the
spacecraft.
Pumps are an issue though because they
vibrate. So, a super low vibration pump
had to be developed.
The biggest heat source in our solar
system though is the sun. And to
counteract this, engineers designed the
sun shield membrane.
There are five layers in all, each
thinner than the width of a human hair
to keep the mirrors cool and protected
from solar rays. This membrane means
that while the side facing the sun can
almost reach 100°,
the instruments on the other side remain
at around -220°.
Again, due to launch limitations, the
membrane will start out folded away, and
when it reaches space, it will begin to
pull the membrane delicately out over
the course of several days until it is
fully stretched out. The membrane is in
fact one of the reasons for the most
recent delay to the telescope. During
the testing of this deployment process,
one of the membranes tore, meaning they
had to replace it and look into the
design to make sure this didn't happen
in the actual launch. Because this is
the big thing with the James Webb Space
Telescope. If something goes wrong,
there is no way to fix it once it's in
space. So, they have to ensure that they
do everything within their power to get
it right the first time. And with such a
complicated design, there is so much
that could go wrong.
Just look at this launch process for it
to get to its final orbital location,
which by the way is the L2 Lrangee point
behind the Earth and beyond the orbit of
the moon.
It's crazy. Nothing has been attempted
on this scale before, and I don't know
anything that will match it for a while
to come.
The James Webb Space Telescope is
actually built now. Everything is
completed. They are just thoroughly
testing each and every one of their
systems to make sure everything goes
smoothly come the launch. Because if
this mission is a success, just this one
telescope will unravel so many of the
mysteries of the universe by itself.
Hubble was already a wonder, but this
will be a serious step up.
When the James Web Space Telescope
recently took a beautiful image of the
Tarantula Nebula, Hubble said, "Hold my
beer." This incredible image of the
nebula 160,000 light-years away from us
is 140 megapixels. For a point of
reference, even using an ultra
highdeinition TV, you would need 16
screens to properly capture this image
pixel for pixel. This level of detail is
astounding, helping scientists pick out
more important information and was only
possible because Hubble took its time
imaging this area over the course of 143
hours spread across years across 60
different orbits. By combining all that
data into one composite image, Hubble
provided us with simply astonishing
detail. Hubble cannot delve into the
infrared as well as the James Web, but
it does have some capabilities in that
regard. This image is a false color
composite covering visible and infrared
wavelengths. So although James Web is
wowing the world with its images, don't
count Hubble out just yet. How can a
blurry image of a star help us
understand more about their orbiting
exoplanets than a clear, sharp image?
It seems counterintuitive, but that's
exactly what Chops or the characterizing
exoplanet satellite is doing.
Chops is a space telescope launched by
the European Space Agency in December of
last year with a mission to hunt down
the most Earthlike exoplanets, which as
you can probably imagine considering the
distances involved is not an easy feat.
I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
Astramm. And in this video, we will talk
about the very promising ISA mission.
This video is a collaboration with our
Spanish channel, Astramm Espanol, which
you can find a link to here and in the
description. Please show Rafa, our
Spanish host, some support. I think he's
doing a great job. And if you're a
Spanish speaker, make sure to take a
look at his channel.
Chops is a joint effort with the Swiss
Space Office, which is fitting as it was
Swiss astronomers who discovered the
first exoplanet back in 1995.
It's hard to believe given that we now
have confirmed the existence of
thousands of exoplanets, but it was only
25 years ago when we discovered the
first one. So, we are still in the early
days of this astronomical field.
The planet they discovered is now called
51 Pegasai B or Dimidium, a gas giant
around 50 light years away in the
constellation Pegasus.
It is now considered the prototype for
what has come to be known as hot
Jupiters. These planets are similar in
size to our gas giant neighbor, but
orbit their planet star very tightly.
Some with orbital periods of 10 days or
less. This means they are extremely hot
due to their close proximity to their
sun.
The reason exoplanets are only just
being discovered is because they are
exceptionally difficult to observe as
they are hidden by the brightness of
their stars. That's why we have to
really think outside the box if we want
to detect them.
If you use a regular telescope to look
at stars that are known to have
exoplanets orbiting them, you'll only
see the shine of the star as its
brightness compared to any close
orbiting exoplanet is overwhelming.
You can't even directly see exoplanets
around the closest star system to us,
Alpha Centuri, which is only four light
years away from us.
If that is our closest neighbor and
directly observing through a regular
telescope won't work, imagine trying to
observe exoplanets tens to hundreds of
light years away.
So, how did those astronomers discover
Dimidium?
Well, hot Jupiters are often the easiest
types to discover, if something like
that can really be considered easy,
because they have a strong gravity and
are close enough to their parent star,
they both orbit each other around a
center of mass that makes the star
appear like it's wobbling.
Depending on the mass of the bodies, the
center of mass can be within the parent
object or with objects of a similar
mass, it could simply be a point in
space. Wherever the center of mass is
located is known as the baris center.
One of the most extreme examples in our
solar system is Pluto and Cheron which
orbit around a point above Pluto's
surface.
In regards to Dimidium, astronomers
could detect shifts in the distant stars
light and confirm the presence of a
large exoplanet because it's causing the
star to wobble. This method of detection
is called the radial velocity method or
dotless spectroscopy.
The discovery of dimidium made by the
LOD spectrograph in France won the
astronomers a Nobel prize and it was
considered a major breakthrough for
European astronomy.
Since then, there have been many new
exoplanet discoveries, and we know now
that the galaxy is teeming with planets.
This is where the Chops mission comes
in. It is already in orbit and sending
back more than 1 GBTE of data every day.
Chops orbits in what is called a
heliosynchronous orbit 700 km up around
Earth. In other words, Chops is in a
dawn dusk polar orbit. That means that
it travels around Earth along the
twilight terminator line with the sun
powering up its solar panels on its
back. Meanwhile, its gaze peers deep
into space protected from sunlight
interference.
Chop's mission allows the telescope to
study the smallest exoplanets we know
called super Earths. They can be as
small as our planet, but can also be as
big as Neptune.
The goal of Chops is not to find new
exoplanets, but to examine ones we
already know about to determine what
they are made of and how they are
formed. And that is very exciting
because it has the capabilities of
discovering potentially habitable
worlds. Planets that might have a
similar size, orbit, and composition to
our home.
Chops is much smaller than Hubble. It's
only 1.5 m across and uses a 32 cm
mirror. However, it can see exactly what
the designers had hoped for. And here is
its first glance at the stars.
Now, something about this image is very
peculiar. All the stars imaged here are
blurry and no exoplanets are visible.
No, this isn't a design flaw. Chops is
working as intended. The reason for the
blurry image has something to do with a
second method of exoplanet discovery,
namely transit photometry.
One of Chops's key instruments is a very
advanced photometer that can detect the
tiniest amount of light variations on
distant stars. If an exoplanet's orbit
is aligned with us, it will transit the
parent star so that it covers some of
the stars disc from our perspective in a
similar fashion to a tiny eclipse.
And that's what Chops does. It monitors
the amount of light it receives from a
specific star and then detects light
variations from when a planet crosses in
front of its disc to see how much dimmer
it gets.
The reason the Chop's image is blurry is
so that light from the star hits more of
the camera sensor, increasing the number
of pixels that get hit by the stars
light.
Through this, astronomers don't need to
see the exoplanet itself. But this
increased resolution allows astronomers
to accurately record and study the stars
light spectra itself, as well as any
changes that take place from the
exoplanet's transit.
As you can guess, the bigger the planet,
the more light it will obscure and the
easier it will be to notice a dip in
light intensity.
For small planets, however, this process
is much more difficult to measure. And
that's why Chops is so important as its
advanced instruments and blurry images
allow astronomers to better define the
transits of those smaller, more
Earthlike planets.
Additionally, Chops can measure a
planet's phase curve, or how much light
it reflects from its sun. When a planet
is in front of the star, it will block
light, but as it orbits around to the
sides, it will reflect light back to us,
which makes the star appear a little
brighter from our perspective.
Here, Chops' photometer comes in handy
again. This time to measure the
increment in light variation. By
comparing it to the light we receive
when the planet is behind the star when
it's not interfering with the stars
brightness, scientists should be able to
isolate the spectrum of the light
reflected by the planet. With that, they
will be able to know the composition of
the planet's atmosphere. And since they
are investigating only the most
promising planets, they can take
multiple readings for a more defined
measurement.
But why does Chops have to be in space?
Can't we do all these readings from
Earth? Well, just like the James Web
telescope, telescopes here on Earth face
two main hurdles. The first one is that
we have night and day. That's a large
section of a 24-hour period where no
observations can take place. We might
miss an important transit during that
time. But even at night, the light a
telescope receives is distorted as it
travels through Earth's atmosphere.
Photons hit several particles in
different layers of the air, making the
light flicker and wobble. Even if there
are several methods to counter that, the
readings would never be as accurate as
they would be in space.
That's why Chops was launched into a
suns synchronous orbit. As I mentioned
before, it will ride the terminator line
of Earth.
This not only allows it to receive
constant light on its back for the solar
panels to generate power, but it also
means it can take a look at stars 24/7
without sunlight interfering with its
readings.
So, as you can see, with all the data
Chops will hopefully collect, it may
just be a matter of time until we can
confirm the existence of another planet
like Earth, a planet with similar mass
and temperature with the presence of
water and oxygen in its atmosphere. All
the right conditions that harbored life
here.
I will definitely keep an eye on Chops
and hope to make a video about its
fascinating discoveries in the future.
Did you ever hear the story of how the
Harlon J. Smith telescope got shot seven
times?
The world of astronomy can be a
surprising place with groundbreaking
discoveries getting made all the time,
but normally ground is the only thing
being broken and the only shots are
images taken of the night sky. It's
exceptionally rare for someone to
actually attempt to attack a telescope.
And yet in 1970, that's exactly what
happened. This moment could have spelled
disaster for what was then the third
largest telescope in the world, which
had only just been completed 2 years
prior. What happened? Why did someone
shoot through the glass mirror of an
observatory telescope with a 9 mm pistol
at point blank range? And how did a
glass mirror of such impressive size
deal with seven shots from a gun and
several preliminary strikes from a
hammer?
I'm Alex Mccoan and you're watching
Astramm. Today we'll be taking a closer
look at the only time in history when an
observatory got shot.
In 1963, the space race was just
beginning. NASA was considering how best
to visit the planets of the solar system
as part of the US's goal to get ahead of
the Soviet Union. It was a technical
task that needed more information about
those planets. So NASA started planning
new telescopes that could image the
heavens they'd soon be traveling to.
Onto the scene came Harlon J. Smith.
Smith was a driven man described as
softly spoken by his peers who had a
deep love of astronomy. He had just been
made director of the Macdonald
Observatory operated by the University
of Texas and located in the mountains
near Fort David. And in his first
official act, he was able to persuade
NASA to give $5 million to build a new
telescope on his site. The project went
ahead and production began in 1964 and
was completed in 1968.
This was no small project. The newly
finished 2.7 m mirror telescope was at
that point in time the third largest in
the world, weighing in at 160 tons with
light gathering capabilities 1 quarter
of a million times greater than was
viewable with the human eye.
Usually, while the electronic components
of a telescope can be changed out as
technology improves, a telescope's
expected lifespan is about 100 years,
which is useful as often observations
can take decades to complete, and it can
take 20 or so years for some known
exoplanets to complete one full orbit,
for example. Undiscovered ones could
potentially take even longer.
The newly built telescope would be
something of a Swiss Army knife, but
primarily would focus on spectroscopy.
The mirror itself was made of fused
silica glass. And while you might think
that sounds easy enough to make, we
create glass all the time, right? Fused
silica is a special kind of glass that's
made in a very particular technically
involved way. Reducing the fused silica
took almost 1 and a2 years piece by
carefully crafted piece in a process of
plasma torch hydrarolysis using silica
gas that required temperatures of
1,700°.
And after the 1,400°
C process that fused its segments
together was complete, just cooling the
entire shape back down again to take its
final form took another 2 years. That
was all to create a mirror that had
almost zero internal stresses and
strains, perfect for the work ahead of
it. Which is why it was so serious when
not even 2 years later, a man named Jack
Hyde decided to try and take the
observatory's telescope mirror out of
commission.
Jack was an instruments technician who
had only recently come to work at the
Macdonald Observatory on the 1st of
January 1970. And we don't completely
know his motivations. He was in his 30s,
had previously been employed at the
prestigious Smithsonian Observatory at
Massachusetts, and had traveled to Texas
to work while his wife and three
children went to live in Nebraska.
Macdonald Observatory was nestled up in
the Davis Mountains where its isolation
and elevation meant it had little light
pollution and less atmosphere to contend
with. The nearest town, Fort Davis, was
around 27 km away, so all the staff
tended to live on site. But such
isolation and distance from his family
may have taken a psychological toll on
Jack. On top of that, hours were long.
Observatories always want to be
performing science as much as possible
when conditions are right, which
sometimes means technicians and
operators could be pulling 48 or even
72-hour shifts.
This isn't entirely unsurprising. Bad
weather, too high atmospheric dust
levels, or strong 100 kmh winds could
call a halt the telescope being used at
all. And if you work in an observatory,
you are likely passionate about
astronomy. But when you combine the
isolation from family with the grueling
high pressure hours, perhaps it sheds
some light on why Jack Hyde, just a
month after starting work, showed up to
the telescope observatory at midnight
with a hammer in his hand and a 9mm gun
in his pocket.
There are reports that Mr. Hyde had been
drinking that night and was suffering
from bad mental health. On the night of
the 5th of February, most of the staff
were in bed. The number of people
manning the McDonald Observatory was
never that high in those days, but only
one telescope operator and one
supervisor were actually in the building
at the time of the incident. Mr. Hyde
entered the building with relative ease.
He worked there after all, and there had
never been a problem like this before,
so there was little security or reason
to stop him. He saw the supervisor and
fired a shot directly at him. Although
the bullet went through the man's
clothes, it thankfully passed through
without hitting him directly and
impacted the wall behind him. The
supervisor ran off, understandably, and
went to get help. Hyde then threatened
the remaining telescope operator and got
him to lower the telescope into a
maintenance mode so the mirror was
easily accessible. Hyde then entered the
telescope and got out his hammer. He
struck the mirror, expecting it to
shatter. He was an instruments
technician, which meant he usually dealt
with the image capturing camera and
equipment at the bottom of the
telescope. He was thus unfamiliar with
the properties of the glass mirror, and
was surprised when his hammer did not
smash the 4 1/2 ton mirror, but instead
bounced off, recoiling and hitting him
instead. He did, however, manage to chip
off a pear-shaped dent from the mirror,
but that was about it. In frustration,
Hyde pointed his gun at the mirror and
unloaded all seven remaining shots in
his clip. Each one lodged into the
mirror, but did little more than
penetrate a few cm.
The process of making the mirror had
involved taking layers of glass and
fusing them on top of each other. This
was due to the scarcity of the fused
silicon material and because of other
limitations of the technology at the
time, it was easier to make smaller
pieces and fuse them together. But
ironically, this process had created a
material similar to laminate glass.
Combined with its thickness of 31.8 cm,
it was essentially bulletproof.
By this point, more staff arrived to
restrain Hyde, holding him until the
local sheriff arrived. Unfortunately,
when the sheriff looked at the mirror,
he mistakenly thought that it was
completely destroyed due to the large
hole in its center, not realizing that
the central hole was supposed to be
there and it was just the smaller bullet
holes that were the actual problem.
Newspapers began running headlines about
how the telescope was destroyed and
Harlon J. Smith, the director, had to
publish an official report telling the
astronomical community that there was
actually nothing to worry about.
Ironically, hides shots had mostly
missed the vital part of the mirror. To
an untrained eye, all parts of a
telescope mirror look like they serve
the same function. However, the portions
of the mirror near to its center are
actually largely unused for resolution
as they are shadowed by other components
and perhaps are only used for a little
light gathering. It's the area near this
ring here that gathers the light used in
imaging.
Fortunately, this means that only three
of hide shots actually hit a critical
area of the mirror. And given that those
small centimeter wide holes only
contribute to a small fraction of the
mirror's total surface area, Mr. Smith
was able to report that the bullet holes
reduce the light collecting efficiency
by about 1% and introduce a very small
amount of defraction.
Not only was the telescope able to
survive the attack, it actually came out
almost completely unscathed.
Mr. Hyde initially faced the prospect of
criminal charges with a potential jail
sentence of 2 to 20 years. But when
Director Smith learned about the mental
health problems Mr. Hyde had been
facing, he decided not to press charges.
Instead, he elected to get Mr. Hyde into
a mental institution and tried to get
him help. It was a kind act and an
indication that the director didn't
harbor any actual ill will towards Hyde.
Perhaps because fortunately no real harm
had been done to either man or machine.
However, when he was eventually
released, Mr. High did not return to
work at the observatory.
The University of Texas engineers
responsible for maintaining the mirror
didn't need to do much to repair it.
Using a small drill, they bored out the
bullets and smoothed out the holes to
prevent any further cracking. Then they
simply layered the reflective surface
back on and called it good. To be fair,
nothing further was required. The
Harland J. Smith telescope still bears
these bullet holes to this day.
The telescope went on to have an
illustrious career. Images it captured
helped inform the plans for the Voyager
missions and it has also made huge
discoveries in the field of exoplanet
research. Back in an era when people had
no idea exoplanets were even out there
in any significant number, the Harland
J. Smith telescope searched the skies
for these astronomical bodies, helping
confirm that they are so frequent that
every star might have at least one. So
the science community is grateful that
Mr. Hyde didn't manage to carry out his
objective at the time. Science would
have lost much without this telescope,
which later was named the Harland J.
Smith telescope in honor of the director
who had built it. But fortunately, it
has suffered little more than a few
battle scars from that night over 50
years ago that it can show to curious
observers like you and I. And to be
fair, when it comes to battle scars, it
still has an easier time of it than
space telescopes like the James Web that
face everpresent threat of micrometeor
striking its mirrors. So, how does a
telescope deal with a 9 mm pistol?
Pretty well is the answer. And it's all
thanks to excellent engineering and
about 4 tons of bulletproof glass. The
more you know. A big thanks to Coin
Gibson, the Macdonald Observatory's
present-day manager of observing
support, who was able to speak to me and
provided me with a lot of these
photographs. You helped make this script
possible.
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