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The images released by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) last week have been uniformly praised across the globe, and SA astronomers are now keeping a beady eye on opportunities coming up.
Dr Rosalind Skelton from the SA Astronomical Observatory said though no South Africans were involved in the early science programmes on the James Webb Space Telescope, “anyone around the world is able to apply for JWST time.
“There is a [very] competitive annual call for proposals, and I am certain South Africans will be co-investigators on more proposals in future, hopefully also leading some as principal investigators.”
The interest in the JWST findings also bodes well for the Square Kilometre Array which recently got the final rubber stamp required to go ahead with the full build of what will be the world’s largest telescope network.
In late June, the council of the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) signed off the papers to allocate €2bn (about R34.9bn) in Southern Africa and Australia for the construction and operation of the telescopes for the first 10 years.
The JWST mission time has been extended, and as such many other optical and radio astronomy instruments will be able to create a far fuller picture of what’s out there and how it all began.
While the SKA will be completed in 2028 and is anticipated to operate for about 50 years, the JWST was only meant to be up and running for five years.
“It is exciting to hear that JWST is expected to operate for a lot longer than the initial official mission time of five years. It has enough fuel to operate for 20 years. We hope that just as the Hubble Space Telescope is still inspiring humanity and providing huge insights into the nature of the universe after 32 years, JWST will be discovering new things many years from now,” Skelton said.
Explaining what the first images have revealed, she said: “These first images already tell us things we did not know before about our universe, and they span a very wide range of topics, from planets to the most distant galaxies. JWST will certainly have a big impact on SA astronomers, as it will worldwide. This is uncharted territory, with new capabilities providing a new window into our universe. Different telescopes provide complementary information spanning a wide range of wavelengths and with different niche capabilities.”
She added: “There is so much to learn to piece together the many unsolved puzzles. Through JWST we’ll learn about the potential of life on other planets, how the first stars, galaxies and black holes formed and how each of these things evolved.”
