Day: December 25, 2021

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, built to give the world a glimpse of the universe as it existed when the first galaxies formed, was launched by rocket early Saturday from South America’s northeastern coast, opening a new era of astronomy.

The revolutionary $9 billion infrared telescope, hailed by NASA as the premiere space-science observatory of the next decade, was carried aloft inside the cargo bay of an Ariane 5 rocket that blasted off at about 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT) from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) launch base in French Guiana.  

The flawless Christmas Day launch, with a countdown conducted in French, was carried live on a joint NASA-ESA Webcast.

After a 27-minute ride into space, the 14,000-pound instrument was released from the upper stage of the French-built rocket, and it should gradually unfurl to nearly the size of a tennis court over the next 13 days as it sails onward on its own.

Live video captured by a camera mounted on the rocket’s upper stage showed the Webb moving gently away high above the Earth as it was jettisoned. Flight controllers confirmed moments later that Webb’s power supply was operational.

Coasting through space for two more weeks, the Webb telescope will reach its destination in solar orbit 1 million miles from Earth – about four times farther away than the moon. And Webb’s special orbital path will keep it in constant alignment with the Earth as the planet and telescope circle the sun in tandem.

By comparison, Webb’s 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the Earth from 340 miles away, passing in and out of the planet’s shadow every 90 minutes.

Named after the man who oversaw NASA through most of its formative decade of the 1960s, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than Hubble and is expected to transform scientists’ understanding of the universe and our place in it.

Webb mainly will view the cosmos in the infrared spectrum, allowing it to gaze through clouds of gas and dust where stars are being born, while Hubble has operated primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

Cosmological History Lesson

The new telescope’s primary mirror – consisting of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal – also has a much bigger light-collecting area, enabling it to observe objects at greater distances, thus farther back into time, than Hubble or any other telescope.

That, astronomers say, will bring into view a glimpse of the cosmos never previously seen – dating to just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set in motion the expansion of the observable universe an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.

Hubble’s view reached back to roughly 400 million years following the Big Bang, a period just after the very first galaxies – sprawling clusters of stars, gases and other interstellar matter – are believed to have taken shape.

Aside from examining the formation of the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe, astronomers are eager to study super-massive black holes believed to occupy the centers of distant galaxies.

Webb’s instruments also make it ideal to search for evidence of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented exoplanets – celestial bodies orbiting distant stars – and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn’s icy moon Titan.

The telescope is an international collaboration led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies. Northrop Grumman Corp was the primary contractor. The Arianespace launch vehicle is part of the European contribution.

Webb was developed at a cost of $8.8 billion, with operational expenses projected to bring its total price tag to about $9.66 billion, far higher than planned when NASA was previously aiming for a 2011 launch.

Astronomical operation of the telescope, to be managed from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, is expected to begin in the summer of 2022, following about six months of alignment and calibration of Webb’s mirrors and instruments.

It is then that NASA expects to release the initial batch of images captured by Webb. Webb is designed to last up to 10 years.

 
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Hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation, marked Christmas on Saturday without homes, adequate food and water, electricity and cellphone connections after a powerful typhoon left at least 375 people dead last week and devastated mostly central island provinces.

Elsewhere, New Zealanders are celebrating Christmas in the warmth of mid-summer with few restrictions, in one of the few countries in the world largely untouched by the omicron variant of COVID-19.

Australia is marking the holiday amid a surge of COVID-19 cases, worse than at any stage of the pandemic, which has forced states to reinstate mask mandates and other measures.

And adding more pain for travelers, airlines around the world canceled hundreds of flights as the omicron variant jumbled schedules and drew down staffing levels.

According to FlightAware, there are more than 3,900 canceled flights on Friday and Saturday, with close to half of the cancellations by Chinese airlines. About 30% of affected flights — more than 1,100 — were to, from or within the U.S. This is still a small fraction of global flights. FlightAware says it has tracked more than 100,000 arrivals in the past 24 hours.

Before Typhoon Rai hit on Dec. 16, millions of Filipinos were trooping back to shopping malls, public parks and churches after an alarming spike in infections in September eased considerably.

Gov. Arthur Yap of hard-hit Bohol province, where more than 100 people died in the typhoon and about 150,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, asked foreign aid agencies on Saturday to help provide temporary shelters and water-filtration systems to supplement Philippine government aid.

“I refuse to believe that there’s no Christmas spirit today among our people. They’re conservative Catholics. But it’s obviously very muted. There is overwhelming fear, there are no gifts, there were no Christmas Eve dinners, there is none of that today,” Yap told The Associated Press.

Yap said he was happy that many Filipinos could celebrate Christmas more safely after COVID-19 cases dropped, but he pleaded: “Please don’t forget us.”

In Manila, which was not hit by the typhoon, Filipino Catholics were relieved to be able to return to churches on Christmas, although only a fraction were allowed inside and worshippers were required to wear masks and stand at a safe distance from each other.

In South Korea, tough social distancing rules remained in place, requiring churches to allow only a limited number of worshippers — 70% of their seating capacity — and attendees had to be fully vaccinated.

In Seoul’s Yoido Full Gospel Church, the country’s biggest Protestant church, thousands of masked worshippers sang hymns and prayed as the service was broadcast online. Many churches across the country offered both in-person and online services.

South Korea has been grappling with soaring infections and deaths since it significantly eased its virus curbs in early November as part of efforts to return to pre-pandemic normalcy. The country was eventually forced to restore its toughest distancing guidelines, such as a four-person limit on social gatherings and a 9 p.m. curfew for restaurants and cafes.

Christmas celebrations were subdued in much of India, with more decorations than crowds as people feared a new wave of the omicron variant potentially sweeping the country in the coming weeks.

Authorities reintroduced nighttime curfews and restrictions on gatherings of more than five people in big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. People attended midnight Mass in Mumbai and elsewhere but in smaller numbers.

Christians comprise just over 2% of India’s nearly 1.4 billion people.

In New Zealand, where 95% of adults have had at least one dose of the vaccine, making it one of the world’s most vaccinated populations, the only omicron cases that have been found have been safely contained at the border.

As the pandemic spread around the world the past two years, New Zealand used its isolation to its advantage. Border controls kept the worst of the virus at bay. By Christmas this year, New Zealand had recorded 50 deaths in a population of 5.5 million.

But that success has come at a cost. There were empty chairs at some tables this holiday season because some New Zealanders living and working overseas were not able to return home due to limits in the country’s managed isolation and quarantine program.

The traditional dining tables of a northern winter — turkey and all the trimmings — are common. But Kiwis also celebrate in an antipodean manner, with barbeques on beaches fringed by the native pohutukawa tree, which blooms only at Christmas.

At New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica, some New Zealanders enjoyed a white Christmas. During summer on the frozen continent, the sun never dips below the horizon and in 24 hours of daylight the temperature hovers around 0 degrees Celsius.

Around 200 people pass through the base over the summer season — scientists, support staff and defense personnel who provide communications and other services. Numbers are lower this year because of the pandemic and all staff traveling to the continent have had to isolate and undergo COVID-19 testing before departure.

Most Pacific Island nations whose health systems might have been overwhelmed by COVID-19 outbreaks have largely managed to keep out the virus through strict border controls and high vaccination numbers.

Fiji has an ongoing outbreak and has had almost 700 deaths. About 92% of the adult population is now fully vaccinated, 97.7% have received at least one dose and many in the deeply religious nation will celebrate Christmas at traditional church services and family gatherings.

Health Secretary James Fong, in a Christmas message, urged Fijians to “please celebrate wisely.”

In remote Macuata province, residents of four villages received a special Christmas gift: Electricity was connected to their villages for the first time.

In his Christmas message, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison referred to the COVID-19 toll.

“This pandemic, it continues to buffet us,” Morrison said. “The omicron variant is just the latest challenge that we have faced. But together, always together and only together, we keep pushing through.”

The omicron variant is prevalent in some states and is estimated to represent more than 70% of all new cases in Queensland.

Summer heat might have discouraged outdoor Christmas feasts in some places. The temperature in Perth in Western Australia was expected to hit 42 degrees Celsius on Saturday, making it the hottest Christmas since records began more than a century ago.

On Christmas Eve, a student driver in the Northern Territory made off with a truck containing more than $10,000 in Christmas hams that was empty when it was found.

“This behavior can only be described as Grinch-like,” police detective Mark Bland said. 

 
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Despite a second year of travel restrictions because of COVID-19, the town of Bethlehem, the site of Jesus’ birth, is reviving its annual Christmas Eve celebration.

“Last year, our festival was virtual, but this year it will be face to face with popular participation,” Bethlehem Mayor Anton Salman told the Associated Press.

On a typical Christmas, the biblical town is a popular destination for tourists from around the globe. An average of 3 million tourists come each year. Much smaller crowds attended the holiday celebrations in Bethlehem on Friday, accompanied by gloomy weather.

“It’s very strange,” said Kristel Elayyan, a Dutch woman married to a Palestinian, who came to Bethlehem from Jerusalem. “If it’s one year, it’s an interesting experience,” she told Agence France-Presse. “But because this is the second year and we don’t know what is going to come in the future, it’s a huge loss for the people here.”

Events included traditional marching band parades and street celebrations. Scout bands with drums and flags gathered in Manger Square to celebrate the holiday.

While celebrations are scaled down this year, Salman is hopeful that 2021’s festivities will exceed last year’s, when residents were forced to celebrate inside their homes because of lockdown restrictions, the AP reported.

Israel’s ban on nearly all incoming air traffic, which has lasted two years, continues to prevent tourists from entering the occupied West Bank, and subsequently, the historic town.

The travel ban to curb the spread of COVID-19 was lifted in November to allow foreign tourists in but was soon reimposed with the emergence of the highly contagious omicron variant. Coinciding with the holiday season, the disease’s newest strain has hampered Christmas celebrations.

Without the flood of tourists, local authorities hoped that the Holy Land’s small Christian community would keep the holiday spirit alive.

Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, celebrated a midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity, the grotto where Jesus is said to have been born.

“Compared to last year’s Christmas, the participation is much greater, and this is an encouraging sign,” he told the masked congregation, but regretted the absence of foreign worshippers because of the pandemic.

“We pray for them and at the same time ask for their prayers, so that all this may end soon and that the city of Bethlehem may once again be full of pilgrims,” he said, according to AFP. 
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