The James Webb Space Telescope will be the largest ever built by NASA and successor to the current Hubble telescope. It will look further into space than ever before, allowing us to gaze through the history of the universe. Once completed and launched into orbit, astronomers will use it to study how planets and solar systems are born, bringing us closer to revealing the origins of the universe and humanity.

In his role as Senior Project Scientist, Nobel Laureate and scientist Dr John Mather is a leading figure behind the project. Having won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics (shared with George F. Smoot of the University of California) for his work using the COBE satellite to measure heat radiation from the Big Bang, this latest venture sees Mather zoom in on the universe’s most intriguing mysteries.

Robert Mead: The James Webb telescope will allow us to look further into space than ever before. What are key differences between the James Webb and the Hubble telescope that allow this?
Dr John Mather: The obvious one is it is a lot bigger, which allows it to see fainter things that are further away. The less obvious one is that it is cold, so it can observe infrared light. The expansion of the universe stretches out light that we receive from the most distant objects so that it is infrared instead of visible or ultraviolet. The wavelength is longer, so we need an infrared telescope to see what started out as visible or UV. This allows us to see further back in time.

RM: What will the James Webb be able to show us that the Hubble cannot?
JM: We’re looking for everything, from the first objects after the Big Bang until now. So we will be looking further back in time to see what grew first, whether they were stars, galaxies or black holes. It’s hard to tell at the moment, so we want to just look. We know more or less how we would recognise them if they are there, so that is one of the hardest problems for us to work on, but also one of the most important.

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