Going Lightspeed - What the James Webb Telescope will show us about our universe

Welcome to the first real post on this blog! Today, I wanted to talk about the James Webb telescope, lightspeed, and our perspective on the universe.

Recently, I was reading the January/February 2023 MIT Technology Review. One section of this was talking about how revolutionary the new James Webb telescope could be for astronomy. Specifically, it was talking about how it could possibly allow us to look into the past of the universe. This might seem impossible, but some of you may know how this could happen. Since light can only move at a finite speed, if you look very far away, you see things that happened in the past, since the light is still traveling toward us. Looking far enough away, it's possible to see very far in the past, and since the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) can see further than our current telescopes, it can also see further back in time, reaching into the depths of our universe's past, and allowing us to get closer to understanding our creation.

The JWST also has a special design that allows it to observe infrared radiation with detail, which is necessary to look far into the universe, as it needs to account for redshift. Redshift refers to wavelengths of light growing as we look back in time, making some visible light turn infrared. Redshift occurs due to the expansion of the universe, because as the universe expands, the waves in it also expand, getting stretched slightly farther apart, decreasing the wavelength. Since red is the lowest wavelength color on the visible spectrum, we call it redshifting, but it can happen all across the EM spectrum, from the infrared just mentioned all the way down to radio waves! This means that with the JWST, we'll be able to see further into space, and further into the past of our universe.

Now, this is a very interesting prospect, and it could prove very useful for the field of astronomy, and it will also just be interesting for all of us to see what they discover. However, reading this article still amazes me with how we can look into the past! I can understand why it happens, but it still just seems crazy to me. This also got me thinking about how, when you move at lightspeed, time seemingly moves at a different rate for you compared to someone moving slower. This is related to the fact that light moves at the complete speed limit of the universe, but that is a very complicated topic.

Despite the fact that these things are just inherently true about the universe, they seem to never affect us because we exist on such a small scale compared to the universe. It's sort of amazing that we are so small compared to everything, yet we can think and learn enough to realize that we are. Despite this feeling, I'm still very excited to see what more we can learn with the James Webb Telescope, and I would recommend that you keep updated as well! If anything big happens with the JWST, I'll probably let you all know!

References

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1064854/james-webb-space-telescope-10-breakthrough-technologies-2023/

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