WEBVTT

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Hey, Stargazers! The James Webb
Space Telescope is one of the
most astonishing telescopes of
modern

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times and part of what makes it
stand apart from others are
these iconic yellow honeycomb
mirrors.

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So what do these mirrors do
exactly? Well, without getting
too bogged down by the
mathematics - we'll

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leave that to the NASA experts -
the mirrors significantly help
scientists see objects

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that are billions of light years
away and they do this because
light is sort of like rain.

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Let me explain. When it's
raining, a big bucket captures
more rain than a small bucket,
right.

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Telescopes are the same, which
is why astronomers sometimes
call them "light buckets."
Bigger mirrors

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mean more light captured and
thus we see clearer pictures,
but JWST's mirrors aren't the
ordinary

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kind. They have two distinctive
features. They're bright and
golden in color and they're
hexagonal in

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shape. The gold color comes from
- you guessed it - gold! Each
segment is made up mainly of a
metal

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called beryllium, but then this
metal is coated in a very thin
layer of gold. The gold
significantly

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increases the reflectivity of a
telescope in infrared red light
which helps the telescope

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see things more clearly. The
honeycomb shapes though, that's
pretty awesome. The arrangement

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of the hexagons is distinctive.
We didn't have a rocket that
could launch a telescope with a

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mirror as big as the whole
thing, so we had to fold it up.
The segments allow for Webb to
have

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the largest possible reflective
surface area to make
observations and it has the
least amount of

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dead space in between each
mirror once unfolded. Overall,
this incredible engineering has
made for

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a really cool-looking telescope
which has already started
sending us some really
cool-looking images.

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And I know we can only see those
images on a computer, but either
way, keep looking up!