All good things must follow to an final stage , and it ’s best to plan beforehand . Revolutionary asthe JWSThas been , it has a much short life history expectancy than the Hubble Space Telescope , have alone ground - establish instruments . NASA has bring out plans for what could be the replacement to its replacement at theAmerican Astronomical Society ’s 241st meeting .

Their proposal is for an pawn that could carry the space telescope flannel mullein after theNancy Grace Roman Observatory ( NGRO ) , which is schedule to launch around 2027 , about the time the JWST ceases operations .

The future telescope does not have its final name yet , but NASA ’s Mark Clampin told the audience that the labor is being plan as the inhabitable Worlds Observatory ( HWO ) . Neither contingent nor funding have been confirmed , but as its working name suggests the task will be much more focussed on a single labor than the JWST or Hubble .

The JWST is already examining theatmospheres of planetsorbiting nearby stars . This , however , represent just a small part of its operations , with more clock time studying themost removed beetleweed , star - forming regionsin our own , and a host of other targets . The HWO will be designed to look for “ biosignatures ” , gases in the atmosphere of rocky or watery planets within star ’ habitable zone .

The plan are designed to receive the call inastronomy ’s decadal surveyfor an instrument subject of detecting signs of life on 25 nearby planets . Hopefully , it will find unambiguous evidence for a biologically created atmosphere before that – but 25 is considered sufficient to indicate life is very rare if none show positive signs .

Although it may have a clearer prime object glass than its predecessors , the HWO will be equal to of many other project . As probably the most powerful space telescope in operation for at least the initial years of its life sentence , plenty of astronomers with other specialties will contend with exoplanet researcher for time point it to their project .

The HWO is expected to be a similar size to the JWST and likewise located atL2 : the full point 1.5 million kilometers ( 932,057 nautical mile ) from Earth where gravitational personnel offset out sufficiently for orbital stability .

The downside to this location is that haunt , upgrades , and refueling have been consider Laputan for the JWST , which is why it ’s not wait to lastmore than ten age . Hubble , meanwhile , is in its third decade thanks to several care missions to Low Earth Orbit .

However , Clampin indicated that NASA thinks by the clock time the HWO launches , robotmissions will be able to reach the site to service it . This will not only enable a much longer biography than the JWST , but create the possibility of upgrades making it more powerful with time .

“ usableness will be huge , ” Aki Roberge of NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center toldScienceNews . Although the mirrors would stay the same , the instruments used to process the light they collect could improve , creating what Roberge called a “ mountaintop observatory at L2 . ”

The current HWO plans fall between two former concepts NASA has drift in more item , love asHabEx and LUVOIR .   It ’s gestate to ramp up on the winner of the JWST ’s unfolding multi - portion mirror , maintain to a similar scale , since we now make out how to do this , and using feature of speech that will get a test extend on the NGRO .

LUVOIR’sdesign is much bigger and more challenging , but also probable to take longer and be more expensive , suggesting the HWO might be an intermediary . HabExhas been foreseen as having a single mirror , one by one larger than any of the JWST ’s and therefore up to of crisper images , but small than the combined power of the JWST ’s 18 .

Unsurprisingly , consider the other leg of the programme , there is no firm timeline for the HWO other than Clampin talking about it launching in the 2040s . Considering how many delayswere requiredfor the JWST , it may be just as well to provide a tenner - long grasp , particularly with the restriction on this portion ofNASA ’s budget .

Many other important but pocket-sized and more specialized space telescopes are , or recently have been , in operation , includingGaia , Spitzer , KeplerandTESS .   However , when it get along to large instruments control in the optical or close - optical part of the spectrum the HWO is intended to keep a dynasty that head for the hills from Hubble to the JWST and then the NGRO .

H / TScienceNews