Feryal Özel, who is a Turkish-American astrophysicist and a professor at the University of Arizona, unveiled the first image of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, a cosmic body known as Sagittarius A*, on May 12, 2022.
The achievement was accomplished by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) international collaboration team that comprises 11 geographically diversified set of radio telescopes which constantly capture space activities.
The James Webb Telescope which was launched into space on Christmas day in 2021 is now stationed at its final destination, currently cooling off, as aligning of its mirrors was completed a few months back and now the final calibrations and corrections are being put in place before it is given a go ahead to start looking into very early times of the universe.
It has already started orbiting L2 which is a comparatively stable gravitational area and called Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2. This telescope possesses about seven times as much light-gathering capability as its predecessor, the much known ‘Hubble’ – a marvel of space science on its own.
Webb will start to observe the sun and other planets outside of our solar system, called Exoplanets. Once stabilized and fully deployed, the Webb will be 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth — one of the longest distances ever achieved by any spacecraft sent from the Earth. We are literally going back in time to explore what transpired some 400 million years ago. Technically we cannot time travel in the past but we can observe it from the present vintage point.
Pakistan should request to book some observatory time so that our new and upcoming space scientists can take advantage of this science wonder to get close to the universe and research ways to enhance Pakistan’s own space programme.
The Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA) contribution is equally significant as that of the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The CSA should be commended as it added Canada’s name as a contributory country to this historic landmark of humanity.
The CSA website explains one of the two contributions from Canada is, “The Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) will guide the telescope with incredible precision during all of the telescope’s observations, with an accuracy of one millionth of a degree”, and the second is,
“The Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS), one of the telescope’s four science instruments, will enable scientists to observe distant galaxies and study exoplanets’ atmospheres to determine their potential for supporting life.”
Any country in the world can request to book time for observation using the Webb. The next 12 months of time has already been requested and has been finally reviewed and granted by the team of peers. Pakistan should request to book some observatory time so that our new and upcoming space scientists can take advantage of this science wonder to get close to the universe and research ways to enhance Pakistan’s own space programme.
From July 20, 1969’s famous words of the When American astronaut Neil Armstrong put his foot on the surface of the moon, he said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. After five decades, it is indeed ‘one giant leap for mankind’, and it is an international effort. It’s a message from earth to the frontiers.
