Hey, smarty pants, trusty narrator here.
Right now, I'm someplace super cool with an amazing view.
See if you can guess where I am.
Hint number one, it's nighttime.
Hint number two, I'm at the top of an elevated area.
Hint number three I'm in a large dome-shaped building with an open roof and a clear view of the night sky.
And final hint, I'm about to look into an incredible instrument that will allow me to peer far out into space and see things way up close.
So any guesses where I am?
Did you say a space observatory?
Nice job if you got that.
And if you said the lavatory, that's where I'm going next.
Okay, next order of business.
I'm here at the Space Observatory to visit my good friend Skye.
Besides having a super cool name, Skye also has a super cool job.
She studies planets, stars, and other celestial bodies.
Smarty Pants, what do you think her job is called?
Is it A, an astronaut, B, a planetologist, or C, an astronomer?
If you said C, an astronomer, you're right.
Sky has graciously invited us all to the observatory to discuss telescopes and some of the progress being made in space exploration.
Why, hello there, trustee.
Glad you and the smarty pants could make it.
Are you kidding?
I wouldn't miss this for the entire universe.
In fact, I was hoping to see some of the universe tonight.
And you shall.
You know, you've come at a really unique period of time.
So much has been happening in the study of space lately, thanks to the new James Webb Space Telescope.
For sure, the pictures that were transmitted from space are truly out of this world.
Sorry, Smarties, couldn't resist.
But the truth is, thanks to technological advances, the telescopes of today can now see further and clearer, in more detail than ever before.
Absolutely.
But before we jump into the what's new in the world of telescopes, let's take a big step back and answer some more basic questions.
Like, who invented the first telescope and when?
What were among the first things that humans discovered because of the telescope?
And what have telescopes taught us about the origins of our universe?
And just how far back in time can the James Webb Telescope see?
Get ready for another whiff of science and history on... Who Smarted?
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When you think of it Sky.
It's pretty incredible how something as primitive as a hollowed-out wooden tube with some glass placed inside eventually led scientists and engineers to create something as massive as the telescope in this observatory.
But what were the first telescopes like and when were they invented?
Well, I could tell you.
Or do you still have that Time Machine app?
I'm one step ahead of you.
I've got my Time Machine app open and I'm ready to go.
There's just one problem.
When should I set it for?
Hmm, that's a good question.
Let's play a little guessing game with the smarty pants to figure out in which time period an early version of the telescope first appeared.
Are you ready, smarty pants?
Was it the 1500s, the time when Copernicus developed the theory that the sun was the center of our solar system?
The 1600s when Kepler developed his laws on how planets revolve around the sun, the 1700s when it was discovered that there were ice caps on Mars, or the 1800s, when the planet Neptune was discovered?
If you said the 1600s, you're right.
Nice job if you got that, smarty pants.
So what year in the 1600s should I punch in, Skye?
Let's go with the year 1608 in Europe.
Got it.
Here we are, 1608.
Hmm.
We seem to be at a conference of some kind.
And from the serious-sounding murmur sound effects we're playing, it sounds important.
Where are we, Skye?
We're in the Netherlands, or as it was formally known back then, the Dutch Republic.
That's a group of Dutch eyeglass makers comparing their handcrafted models of primitive telescopes that were all produced around the same time.
However, credit for the first telescope often goes to that man over there.
He's coming over here.
Probably because you were waving to him.
Hello.
My name is Hans Lippesey.
I am a German-Dutch glassmaker.
I built a device that can magnify objects three times.
And I found a way to reduce the amount of light entering the scope in order to make my images clearer.
Aha!
So you essentially invented the telescope.
Telescope?
Back then, it was called Dutch perspective glasses.
Oh.
Also, while Hans submitted the first patent or claim for his invention, he was not the only one to do so.
And because so many people applied for patents and because the judge decided the invention was easy to reproduce, all the patent claims were thrown out.
But looking back now, with the benefit of time, Hans Lippashey is usually credited with inventing the first telescope.
Ooh, I feel a little better now.
Trusty.
Dial in the year 1609.
On it.
Ah, buongiorno.
My name is Galileo Galilei.
Oh, wow!
Galileo!
You're a legend!
Si.
And, uh, who are you?
I'm the trusty narrator from the Who Smarted podcast.
I'm from the few-
Good point, Skye.
As I was saying Galileo, you're a legend for your recent discoveries of Venus' different phases and of Jupiter's four largest moons.
Also, we hear you've improved the design for the instrument now called a telescope.
Ah, indeed I have.
For one thing, you increased the magnification up to nine times, when everyone else was stuck on two or three.
Guilty as charged.
Which helped you fortify your theory that the Earth and the planets circled the sun.
What's known as the heliocentric model.
That just happened.
World certainly travels quickly these days.
You think that's fast?
Wait till you hear about the internet.
What is the internet?
Never mind.
Over the next few decades, other big names will have a hand in developing and improving upon Galileo's version of the telescope, furthering the knowledge of astronomy.
Such as?
Johannes Kepler developed a telescope so powerful he was able to determine the planet's move in elliptical orbits around the Sun and at different speeds.
And Sir Isaac Newton... Ooh, the gravity guy!
Ow!
That apple fell on my head!
Yes!
Newton pioneered the reflecting telescope, which used a mirror to reflect the image in the tube.
This helped produce a sharper image than the refracting telescopes, which relied on glass lenses.
Brilliant!
Indeed!
Okay, let's jump ahead to 1990.
Set the date for April 24th and take us to the Kennedy Space Center, where we can witness the exact moment an enormous, state-of-the-art telescope was launched into space.
In fact, for the first few decades after it was built, it was actually called the Large Space Telescope.
Seriously?
Yep.
Let's see if the smarty pants can guess what name the Large Space Telescope was changed to in 1983.
Is it...
B, the Bubba Telescope, or C, the Hubble Telescope?
Smartypants, did you say the Hubble Telescope?
Nice.
It was named in honor of Edwin Hubble, whose theory proved there were other galaxies within the universe.
That's pretty cool.
Not only that, but these galaxies are moving away from our own Milky Way galaxy at increased speeds the further away they are.
The Hubble also helped pin down the age of the universe to be 13.8 billion years.
That's about three times older than the Earth.
We're watching the Hubble telescope being transported into space, about 360 miles above Earth.
From here, the Hubble will discover two moons of Pluto, send back images of the pillars of creation, which are three enormous trunks of cosmic dust and gas, and help determine the rate in which the universe is expanding.
But as amazing as the Hubble was, there's an even more technologically advanced telescope doing some even more amazing things today.
Yep, and we're going to hear all about it right after this quick break.
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Now back to Who Smarted.
And now, back to the Space Observatory.
Skye, I see you've projected some of the first images sent back from the James Webb telescope.
Aren't they remarkable?
Smarty pants.
Ask an adult if you can go online and check out some of the images yourself on NASA's website.
I hear the telescope is now orbiting the sun and is how far from Earth?
What do you think, smarty pants?
Is the James Webb Space Telescope 1000 miles from Earth, 100000 miles from Earth, a million miles from Earth or a billion miles from Earth?
Smarty pants, if you said a million, you got it.
What's really cool is that the telescope is in sync with the Earth's elliptical orbit around the Sun and is taking photos that are opposite the Earth and Sun.
Basically pointing out into space rather than facing us.
Exactly.
The telescope has pretty much been parked in what's known as the Second Lagrange Point Orbit, or L2 for short.
Unlike anything else before it, this space telescope has the capacity to study extremely distant and incredibly faint wavelengths.
Meaning?
Meaning.
Rather than relying solely on viewing those wavelengths that make up the color spectrum, such as red orange yellow, green and so on, it's capable of observing objects that appear off the spectrum, such as infrared.
Ah, so basically things that are invisible to the human eye.
How cool is that?
Whoa.
To give you some perspective, imagine holding up a single grain of sand at arm's length, and within that single grain of sand are thousands of galaxies.
That's almost too hard to comprehend.
What's also unique about this telescope is its ability to permeate or see through all sorts of clouds, cosmic dust and gases.
Those types of things have always obstructed our complete view of the universe.
Until now.
Wow, how does it do that?
With its 18 gold-plated hexagonal mirrors.
Oh, it kind of looks like a honeycomb.
Yep, it can view light from stars that are literally being born.
And stars that are dying.
One of the first photos sent back was of something called the Carina Nebula.
It's a humongous star with a mass about 150 times that of the sun and about 4 million times brighter.
I'm going to need a higher SPF sunscreen.
Scientists hope to observe the very first stars that made up our universe and maybe even detect conditions on some exoplanets, which are those that lie beyond our solar system.
That's amazing, Skye.
One last question.
How far back into time can this telescope actually look?
Great question, trustee.
Believe it or not, this telescope can see 13.6 billion light-years in distance.
Which means it can see just before... Before what, Smarty Pants?
What event do we think occurred around then?
I'll give you a hint.
It's the thing that supposedly started it all.
Did you say the Big Bang?
Yep.
This telescope might be able to let us look beyond the creation of the universe.
Wow.
If only Hans Lippershey, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and Sir Isaac Newton could see this.
We can.
So, Presa, we snuck inside your time machine app.
Oh, boy.
We're going back.
A sky-high shout-out to Brooks in Tyre, New York.
Someone told us you think Who Smarted is the perfect way to end every day and that you love sharing all the fun facts you learn with friends.
We think that is the best way to spread the smarting.
This episode Telescopes was written by Dave Deep Space Davis and voiced by Jenna Hubbell-Hobin, Adam Scopes Davis, Max Convex Kamaski and Jerry Colbert.
Technical direction and sound design by Josh, Hyperspace Han.
Who Smarted? is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios.
Our associate producer is Max Kamaski.
The theme song is by Brian Saturn Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex-Davis.
Who Smarted? was created and produced by Adam Tex-Davis and Jerry Kolber.
This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.
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