Ali Guarneros-Luna, San Jose State alumna and aerospace engineering professor, joined SJSU astronomy professor Michael Kaufman during a Tuesday panel to discuss the launch and purpose of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The event was livestreamed on Vimeo by QuickBites from the Hammer Theatre Center in Downtown San Jose.
QuickBites is a forum sponsored by Humanities & Arts in Action, Humanities & Arts in San Jose and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library to bring conversations about urgent news, according to the College of Humanities and the Arts website.
Guarneros-Luna is a senior NASA aerospace engineer who supports the Small Satellite Technology Program at The Space Technology Mission Directorate, managing Tipping Points program and other small satellites. Guarneros-Luna is also part of the engineering team working on the telescope mission, according to the event’s website.
The telescope was launched on Dec. 25, 2021 and arrived at its final destination on Jan. 24 around the second orbit, or Lagrange point, in space. It arrived between the sun and the Earth, where it can orbit without any additional thrusters, held in place by the forces of gravity, according to a Jan. 24 NASA Blogs article.
The JWST is designed to look far into space and capture images from the earliest moments of the universe and answer questions about the universe’s beginning.
The telescope will be used to extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, by using long wavelength coverage to improve sight into the oldest galaxies and dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are being formed currently, according to NASA’s webpage.
“The telescope has 18 small mirrors that make up one enormous golden mirror to collect as much light as possible from astronomical objects,” Kaufman said during the event. “That light gets focused to a secondary mirror and the light from this mirror gets directed through a small hole in the center of the primary to the back of the telescope where all the scientific instruments are located.”
Kaufman said the mirrors are made of beryllium, a low density, silvery-white metal that’s used in aviation, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry Beryllium webpage.
He said some instruments take pictures in deep space while others break light into different wavelengths to understand the chemical makeup, heat and distance from a certain galaxy.
The JWST is designed to collect infrared light, according to NASA’s Webb vs. Hubble telescope webpage.
Infrared light is encountered every day. The human eye cannot see it, but humans can detect it as heat, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
This is why it’s important to keep the instrumentation cold at all times, according to the same NASA webpage.
“The whole reason to cool down the telescope is to keep it from emitting infrared light so it doesn’t distract it from the infrared coming from somewhere else in space,” Kaufman said.
Guarneros-Luna said the telescope will not necessarily indicate life on other planets but it can give “a good indication” of a planet’s inhabitability.
“We will be able to discern whether these other planets can be a host for life and what we can imagine life on that planet,” Guarneros-Luna said.
After NASA completes its lens calibrations and on-board operating systems, JWST will begin sending images back to Earth, according to a Jan 24. Space.com article.
Space.com provides space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, according to its webpage.
“It’s going to be another six months before the telescope starts taking science data and sending back images,” Guarneros-Luna said.
Fall 2021 psychology alumnus Brandon Imperial said the telescope is the next “big step” in space exploration.
“This is the Hubble on steroids and fascinating for our generation to learn and understand,” Imperial said in a Zoom call. “This isn’t just big for science but for humans as a whole.”
He said seeing Ali Guarneros-Luna as part of the team is “exciting” and “speaks volume” about the SJSU curriculum and its science department.
“She’s representing for the Spartan nation and it’s amazing seeing her contribution,” Imperial said.
