Although astronomy and space sciences have reached an advanced stage at the present time, and have revealed many questions and cosmic phenomena, there is always an unknown that tempts research, investigation, and learning more about the never-ending secrets of space, and perhaps the latest thing achieved in this field is the news.

Space Club

Recently, international news agencies reported that India had joined what could be called the “space club.” The unmanned Indian Chandrayaan-3 (meaning the moon vehicle) landed on the surface of the moon on August 23, which the Prime Minister described.

Indian Narendra Modi, and many analysts, called it a “historic day” as India’s latest scientific achievement.

This new attempt for the flourishing Indian space program comes four years after a similar Indian attempt, but it failed. It also comes a few days after the crash of the Luna-25 probe, the first that Russia sent to the moon since 1976.

This explains why The widespread Indian celebration of this event has created a place for it on the “big list” in the field of “space conquest,” which includes only three countries: the United States, Russia, and China.

James Webb Telescope

Before this new Indian achievement, the most prominent event in the field of space exploration was what NASA achieved in cooperation with the Canadian and European space agencies by sending the giant James Webb telescope into deep space. This is the topic that is addressed in a new part of the documentary series. James Webb

“The Unknown” entitled “Cosmic Time Machine” shown on Netflix.

Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine (2023)

Anxiety, rush, and anticipation

Over the course of more than an hour, this documentary recalls the preparations that preceded the launch of the telescope, and reveals what happened behind the scenes in terms of waiting, anxiety, rush, and anticipation.

It follows the efforts of a team of engineers and scientists who participated in the project, the impact this had on their daily lives and their families, and how the insistence on the success of the project became an obsession.

To them, as some of them provide testimonies about what was going through their souls as they worked on this telescope, which is considered one of the most ambitious projects in uncovering the mysteries of the universe, and was described as a “technological miracle.”

At first glance, the event may seem ordinary, as it is merely sending a new telescope into space, after several telescopes were sent into space in previous years, but this documentary proves that the matter cannot be reduced in this way. Rather, there are details, numbers, and facts that make this achievement a unique event and an exceptional station. .

James Webb Telescope

Aside from the pure scientific data that may be incomprehensible, we can talk about other details that reveal the importance of the James Webb Telescope, which took about 30 years of work to build the most modern and advanced electronic devices, and this included dozens of experiments and tests in order to discover weak points and reduce the error rate to zero.

How big is the james webb telescope

JWST will orbit the sun at a distance of around one million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth, near the second Lagrange point (L2).

The size of the main mirror is 21.3 feet (6.5 metres). Sunshield: 22 metres by 12 metres, or 69.5 feet by 46.5 feet. 14,300 lb (6,500 kg) in weight

How far can the james webb telescope see

13.5 billion years

With infrared vision, Webb is a potent time machine that can look back 13.5 billion years to observe the first stars and galaxies emerging from the early universe’s darkness.

Failure scenario

And eliminating all scenarios that might fail the mission that Congress had threatened to stop after its budget amounted to several times what was expected, knowing that the failure scenario, despite all those efforts, was a possibility, so much so that the team supervising the telescope had prepared in advance two speeches.

One of them will be delivered if the mission is successful (which is what actually happened), and the other will be given in the event of failure, and this last speech, paragraphs of which the documentary transmits, seemed full of words of disappointment, brokenness, and pain, with an insistence on overcoming the setback and rising again.

The documentary reveals that the final cost of this giant project amounted to $10 billion, which means that the James Webb Telescope, which derives its name from the name of a NASA director in the 1960s, is the most expensive piece of engineering electronics, ever, in the world of technology.

Work on developing this telescope began in 1996, and it was planned to be launched in 2007, with an initial budget estimated at about half a million US dollars, but the project was subjected to many postponements and underwent a major redesign in 2005, with the resulting increase in costs, and its construction was completed.

In 2016, a new phase began, represented by intensive testing.

It seemed notable that the launch dates had been postponed several times since 2018 for various reasons, including the Covid-19 pandemic, so the telescope finally launched into space on December 24, 2021, and supplied enough fuel to continue its mission for 20 years.

Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine (2023)

According to this documentary, which monitors the stages of building a “cosmic time machine,” one of the main tasks of the James Webb Telescope is to explore the early ages of the universe, and to study the exoplanets outside the solar system in search of a planet similar to Earth, suitable for life, and it is also supposed to help in understanding… James Webb

The formation of stars

The formation of stars and their life cycle in a better way, and all of this is based on complex scientific theories, and based on what has been achieved in the field of space science, up to the present moment.

Hubble telescope VS James Webb

Compared to the Hubble telescope, for example, which was launched by NASA in 1990 and was considered, at the time, one of the most important space telescopes, as it provided rich images and data and contributed to expanding our understanding of the universe and its evolution, the James Webb Telescope was designed to be more sensitive and accurate than the Hubble. “By 100 times.

It is known that the Hubble telescope is located in orbit around the Earth at a distance estimated at about 545 kilometers, while James Webb headed to a point one and a half million kilometers away, specifically to a point called in space science, the second Lagrange.

On July 12, 2022, NASA unveiled the first color images taken by James Webb, which showed clusters of galaxies and nebulae. These shots constituted the beginning of the scientific operations of this telescope.

Last July, the telescope published new “amazing” images, according to the description. Astronomers show about 50 newborn stars with sizes similar to our sun, allowing a clearer view of “a very short period in the life cycle of stars.”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson commented in a statement on the images that “the James Webb Telescope changed humanity’s view of the universe in one year,” noting that “every new image is a discovery, which encourages scientists around the world to ask questions they would not have dreamed of.” before, and who answered it.”

Gagarin and Neil Armstrong

India’s arrival on the moon and the launch of the James Webb Telescope represent the culmination of a long history extending more than half a century in space exploration.

As it marks the first flights into space for the former Soviet Union (current Russia), which launched the first spacecraft, “Sputnik 1”, on October 4. 1957, and that was a turning point in human history that chronicled what would be known as the “Space Race” and the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States.

It revealed that the Cold War between the two camps was not limited to the nuclear arms race, military and economic superiority, espionage, propaganda, and counter-propaganda.

Rather, space had become an arena. Another in which the two powers compete to show each other their superiority in this ambiguous and urgent field.

About a month after “Sputnik 1”, the Soviet Union launched the “Sputnik 2” vehicle, that is, on November 3 of the same year, and the vehicle carried, at that time, the dog “Laika”, who died a few hours after its launch due to the high temperature of the ocean. She lived inside the spacecraft, yet Laika was considered the first living being sent into space.

But the first successful human space flight was the Soviet “Vostok 1” on April 12, 1961, which carried the first astronaut, Yuri Gagarin (1934 – 1968), which opened a completely new era in space exploration, followed by the flight of Valentina Tereshkova (born in 1937). She boarded Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, becoming the first female astronaut.

Soviet Union was a pioneer in space exploration

Although the Soviet Union was a pioneer in space exploration, the United States sought with all its might to keep up with its Soviet opponents and strive to surpass them, as it developed an “ambitious space program” and established NASA in 1958 and, in turn, sent several vehicles into space.

But the greatest resonance was the Apollo 11 flight, which succeeded in transporting Neil Armstrong (1930 – 2012) into space, making him the first person to set foot on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, and to this day his historic shout echoes as he steps on it.

The luminous object that has always ignited the imagination: “It’s one small step for man, but one giant leap for humanity.”

Space Odyssey

Whether the goal of space exploration was to prove military, political, and technological superiority among the great powers, or for purely scientific purposes, the arts were always present, keeping pace with developments in this regard, or exploring the unknown in their own way, and here the French writer Jules Verne (1828 – 1905).

Who is considered one of the pioneers of the science fiction novel, and among his most famous works are “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth,”

“From the Earth to the Moon,” and “Around the World in Eighty Days,” as he predicted through his writings technological progress. And scientific, especially with regard to space travel, and there are countless literary works written in this vein, through different and disparate aesthetic experiences that explore the magic and mystery of the universe.

Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine (2023)

In cinema, as well, there are many experiments, but the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” by director Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) may be one of the most famous of all, as it was released in the year 1968, that is, specifically in that era. Which witnessed momentum in “space invasion” flights.

One of the most important science fiction films

By the standards of that era, this film is considered one of the most important science fiction films in the history of cinema, thanks to its innovative techniques and breathtaking visual photography, which leads the recipient to a breathtaking journey into the unknowns of the universe. james webb telescope

The film deals with various topics related to human development, artificial intelligence, and space exploration. Indeed, the scenes that Kubrick draws about space and those imaginary vehicles roaming the void and talking about going to the moon seemed to be a forecast of what actually happened later.

In addition, this lavish visual spectacle is accompanied by musical clips, Especially for Richard Strauss, it gave the film an epic character that embodied the fascination of space and the isolation, silence, and darkness it symbolizes, and it tempted the arts and sciences, throughout the ages, with the virtue of discovery.