Perhaps the greatest advertisements for scientific method today are the incredible images that have been produced by the Hubble Space Telescope since it was launched into space more than a decade ago. Unlike the past, where images of space were typically a blur with a few white spots where the stars should be, Hubble images displayed incredible complexity and beauty that matched art.
The pictures generated by Hubble gave the world a real insight into the excitement that scientists are able to enjoy from the world, and since its launch, Hubble has produced more data for researchers to pore over than any of the mission designers ever could have imagined. Of course, all good things must come to an end, and time has taken its toll on the venerable Hubble Telescope, and it is now entering the final years of its life.
Of course, this day has come as no surprise at NASA, and they have been preparing the next generation space telescope for around 10 years. Named after James Webb, the mission director at NASA who dominated the agency through the glory of the Apollo years, the new space telescope will probably come to generate images that will make those of Hubble look positively dull.
The James Webb Telescope will be launched into space in 2013, and will have a mirror that is 6.5 metres in diameter, allowing it to see back to the time around the birth of the universe, and give scientists even more insight into the beginnings of time and space in the big bang.
Thanks to its incredibly complex optics, the James Webb Space Telescope will show scientists more information than ever before. By the time it is launched into space, it will be the most useful tool in cosmology available anywhere, and could lead to many new scientific discoveries, and developments in science.