After Hubble

The Hubble Space Telescope has been up there more than twenty years. After two decades of discovery it is starting to show its age and sadly it is unlikely to be still operating by the time it celebrates twenty five years in orbit. NASA and ESA are already working on a successor, the James Webb Space Telescope for launch in 2013. We will talk more about this amazing project in future posts but now just compare the main mirrors of the two instruments. For telescopes, mirror diameter is the key statistic, a bigger mirror means fainter objects can be resolved in greater detail.

The JWST will be considerably more capable, but will it still have the same place in people's hearts as Hubble?






Image credit: NASA