The Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon has unveiled its latest exhibit, “Capturing the Cosmos: Images from the James Webb Space Telescope.”
Featuring 13 high-quality images of the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy, the exhibit showcases images taken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s James Webb Space Telescope.
“This is truly just like Hubble (telescope) 25 years ago,” said UO professor of astronomy Scott Fisher, who curated the exhibit. “We are at the beginning of a brand new kind of era of astronomy.”
All about the James Webb Space Telescope
Alongside stunning images, MNCH’s new exhibit tells museum-goers all the essentials about the telescope: how it was built, its size and how it works.
Fisher said Webb functions like most telescopes but is in space and mostly operates autonomously.
Its honeycomb-like mirror measures 21.7 feet across (for reference, Pine Mountain Observatory’s biggest telescope’s mirror is 1.2 feet). Because of its size, NASA got creative, folding it into a huge “origami” to fit in its launch vehicle. Although it was designed to be as light as possible, it still weighed in at about 13,000 pounds.