2. What is this all about?
In Unit 2 we are working with project design
So far we have
Worked with the Critical Path Method (CPM)
You have designed a bicycle cart
Discovered information on Communications
Satellites as well as the GPS system
Now we are going to work with Space
Telescopes
3. What is a telescope
A telescope is a light bucket
What that means is that telescopes collect
energy.
Although that energy could be in the form of
visible light, it could actually be energy from
any part of the electromagnetic spectrum
Telescopes focus the energy and send it into
instruments or an eyepiece so that the energy
can be viewed or turned into data
4. How do they work
A telescope collects energy (it tries to fill up
its bucket with energy)
In most cases the energy is so weak it must be
focused to pick up as much energy as possible
from a large area into a small area
The weaker the signal the bigger the dish or
mirror you will need
5. A piece of trivia
There was a movie titled “Contact” with Jodi
Foster. You can find clips on the internet.
In the movie the Earth receives a transmission
from a far off galaxy
I had dinner with the math advisor to the movie
and his wife was the physics advisor
He told me that to be able to receive that
message from so far way, the signal would have
been so weak, that the dish for the antenna
would have needed to be the size of the Sun.
6. Why put a telescope in space?
Energy can be absorbed or reflected
When energy from space travels through the
atmosphere many types of energy are
absorbed such as ultraviolet, infrared, radio
You can see what does and does not reach
the surface of the Earth by looking at this
website
So, if you want to study the energy that does
not reach the Earth, you have to go above the
atmosphere
7. In this Unit
JamesWebb SpaceTelescope
conceptual design
www.jwst.nasa.gov
In this unit you will be looking at what a space
telescope is and what it can do
You will be designing your own space
telescope
Good Luck
