Willott’s joy at seeing this image – which showed a cluster of hundreds of galaxies in deep space – was the culmination of 16 years of work on the project. He primarily oversaw one of Canada’s two major contributions to the telescope: the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). “We all jumped up and ran to the screen to try to get a closer look as we wanted to see the details of these beautiful images with thousands of galaxies,” said Willott, who is based at the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre. in Victoria. “I’ve been working on studying distant galaxies at the far reaches of the universe for 20 years, and it still baffles me how big they all are.” Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden unveiled the first image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. (NASA)
“Cosmic Time Machine”
The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful and complex space observatory ever built, is a $10 billion project led by NASA in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA/ASC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The telescope, whose development dates back to 1996, was launched into space on December 25, 2021. Willott, one of the lead Canadian scientists on the James Webb project, began taking a leading role in the development of the NIRISS instrument in 2011 and has since been working with scientists from Europe and the US Dubbed Canada’s “cosmic time machine,” NIRISS is designed to help scientists determine the composition of exoplanet atmospheres and observe black holes and distant galaxies — some of the first in the universe. Willott said he and his team are already hard at work using the instrument to investigate the telescope’s first image. “Each of these galaxies will have a spectrum from the NIRISS instrument,” Willott said. “It allows us to measure certain chemicals and properties from these galaxies that you can’t get just by looking at an image.” The instrument has already helped detect the possible presence of water in the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet, Herzberg astronomer Tyrone Woods said. “It’s very close to the sun, so it’s constantly being baked, but it’s still an awesome proof of concept. It’s something that we hope James Webb will be able to see — the slightly more hospitable planets around other stars,” Woods said. Findings released by the James Webb Space Telescope indicate the existence of water in the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-96B. (Credit: NASA)
Nice guidance
Scientists from Herzberg were also involved in the design of Canada’s other contribution to the telescope, the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS), which allows it to detect distant objects. “It allows James Webb to point with the extreme precision we need to look for those needles in a haystack,” Woods said. Canada’s contributions mean its astronomers will be given 5 percent of the telescope’s observing time, with the NIRISS team alone having 450 hours in the first year. “It’s a very exciting time for them to be able to get this data and for observational projects that they’ve planned and designed,” Willott said.
“There’s a lot we don’t understand”
The James Webb Telescope was designed to succeed the aging Hubble Telescope, which is expected to remain in operation until the late 2020s. “It’s a huge thing for Canada to have played such an important role in this, whereas we didn’t play such an important role with the Hubble Space Telescope,” Willott said. “I think it shows that Canada really can produce world-class equipment in the best telescope ever built in the world.” He says that the Webb telescope is performing better than expected and that he is eager to delve into the mysteries of the universe. “What keeps me going is that I know there are a lot of things we don’t understand,” Willott said. “With the Webb telescope, we will learn more in the coming years, but there will still be many mysteries beyond that.”
