The video runs exactly three minutes and explains how the three detectors on the MIRI work and the tests they endure to prepare them for the Webb telescope's launch and flight in space. The video is hosted by Estacion, who interviewed Dr. Michael Ressler, the MIRI Project Scientist at NASA JPL. In the video, Ressler explains what MIRI detectors do and how the MIRI sensor works by comparing it to a chip on a camera. The video also takes the viewer behind the scenes and into a clean room to show viewers how the MIRI detectors are tested.
The Webb telescope is the largest space observatory ever constructed. As a result, MIRI will have a huge discovery potential and will enable the Webb telescope to achieve over one hundred times the sensitivity of any previous observatory at these wavelengths.
To see the very first stars and galaxies, astronomers have to look deep into space and far back in time. Starlight travels through space at a finite speed (300,000 kilometers/second). So if we observe an object that is 300,000 kilometers away with the Webb telescope, we see it as it was 1 second in the past. Astronomical distances are measured in "light years", the distance that light travels in a year. Galaxies can be billions of light years away. As a result of this transmission delay, astronomical telescopes, like the Webb, allow astronomers to literally look back in time and see the universe as it was billions of years in the past.
The space that fills the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. As a consequence of this expansion, the wavelength of ultra-violet and visible light emitted by the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang has been stretched into the infrared portion of the spectrum, and can only be observed by telescopes that are equipped with infrared cameras such as the MIRI. "The Webb observatory design has been optimized to enable infrared observations that will, for the first time, enable astronomers to see the period in the evolution of the universe in which the first galaxies formed," Greenhouse said. "The MIRI will play a key role in enabling the very first observations of the galaxy formation epoch."
In addition to the huge discovery potential, MIRI will provide valuable information in the four areas of the Webb's science objectives: 1) Discovery of the 'first light' emitting objects after the Big Bang; 2) Assembly of galaxies: history of star formation, growth of black holes, prediction of heavy elements; 3) How stars and planetary systems form; and 4) Evolution of planetary systems and conditions for life.
A new video about the MIRI detectors is part of an on-going series called "Behind the Webb" about the James Webb Space Telescope. It was produced and created by the Space Science Telescope Institute (STScI) of Baltimore, Md. Part of the video was shot at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in January 2009. "It is a broadcast quality video in high definition and will be available in almost a dozen varieties of file formats from Quicktime, to WMV to Flash, to M4V, and all in different sizes," said Mary Estacion, News Video Producer at STScI.
(Photo Credit: STScI)
The MIRI optics module is labeled here to show different components.
(Photo Credit: University of Leicester, European Consortium Institutes and JPL)
Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center