Mirrors Of Gold
With telescopes, the bigger the mirror they are equipped with, the more light they’d be able to capture. And the resolution of the image that we get will be that much higher. That’s why, with the creation of more and more advanced telescopes, they are being equipped with bigger mirrors. The mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope, was of this size.
And you have the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope. This entire mirror is plated with 24karat gold. Because gold is the best at reflecting red light. That everything that radiates heat emits infrared waves. When the telescope will start working, the telescope will radiate some heat too. Some infrared waves will be emitted from within the telescope. It’ll interfere with the waves coming from the galaxies and we wouldn’t be able to get good high-quality pictures.
To avoid this, this James Webb Telescope will work only at the cold temperatures of -223°C. The temperature needs to be so low for it to work. On Earth, the temperature hasn’t fallen below -89°C. So how could this telescope be kept so cold? It is possible to do it in space. It is possible because it is very cold in space, unless there’s sunlight. If sunlight falls on you in the space, the temperature would rise rapidly. As is the case on the moon.
Because there isn’t any atmosphere on the moon, The temperature may fall to -170°C there. But as soon as there’s sun, the temperature rises to 120°C. It is very problematic for this telescope. No sooner would sunlight fall on this telescope it would be problematic as everything would heat up rapidly. So they needed to stop the Sun.
