James Webb Space Telescope thread

[Buster]

It sounds like this thing will finally be launching in the spring (for real this time!). Unless it doesn't.

Anyway.

We'll start seeing some news out of this project as we get closer. It's a fascinating project both from a science perspective, and from an engineering perspective. Most people don't realize that a) it's not really an visible optical telescope and b) it's going WAY th fuck out there to get to the L2 point.

Here's a good video of it. Will update with news and, eventually, some of the observations.

[mazdavirgin]

I've been following this thing for years. I just really really hope there is no problem with the mission either during the launch or during the deployment at L2. It's such a massive step forward compared to hubble but the complexity of the design scares me a little bit. Really hope it goes off without any hitches.

[Buster]

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I've been following this thing for years. I just really really hope there is no problem with the mission either during the launch or during the deployment at L2. It's such a massive step forward compared to hubble but the complexity of the design scares me a little bit. Really hope it goes off without any hitches.

yup. its so complex compared to any other telescope and probably any other satellite.

[tonytiger55]

Im so pumped for this. It keeps getting delayed.
I just hope the launch goes well. But I think it will be a while till we see any images or meaningful data.

[Buster]

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Im so pumped for this. It keeps getting delayed.
I just hope the launch goes well. But I think it will be a while till we see any images or meaningful data.

I think they will pump out a couple of images almost right away for PR reasons. But I'm sure there are a zillion experiments lined up by researchers for every minute of available time on the telescope. After all, this thing unlike hubble WILL have a limited lifespan, so every minute counts. I think the requests to granted requests on hubble are soemthing liek 20 to 1, with a committee doing the selections. I bet this will be even harder to get time on.

It's got a 6 month transit time to L2 I believe, so it willbe in place in the fall if the launch in the spring still goes ahead.

[revelations]

The sheer number of things to go wrong is truly staggering. You cant just test all of the items in a weightless vacuum here on earth.

[D'z Nutz]

Oh man, I'm so excited for this, but at the same time I'm almost expecting more disappointment.

[ZenOps]

Should put a nuclear heated permanent observatory on the dark side of the moon. That way, glare off the earth is never an issue, atmosphere is never an issue, fuel to stay in orbit is never an issue. When the sun goes down its literally only the stars. Relaying information to earth is the only big issue.

I can imagine China will try first.

[ZenOps]

If there are advances in crystallization growth (sapphire) it may be much better to just push up a crystal of sapphire and have it refract through the material instead of traditional metal. Some sort of gorilla glass for space, corning would probably know if its doable.

A solid hunk of sapphire would be nearly indestructible.

[e31]

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Should put a nuclear heated permanent observatory on the dark side of the moon. That way, glare off the earth is never an issue, atmosphere is never an issue, fuel to stay in orbit is never an issue. When the sun goes down its literally only the stars. Relaying information to earth is the only big issue.

I can imagine China will try first.

You do know that the "Dark Side" of the moon is not permanently dark right? Solar panels work just fine over there (ask your pals in China).
The glare off the earth would be nonexistent, however the glare from the Sun would be an extreme impediment to the observation of anything that is not said Sun.
Fuel to stay in orbit may be a concern in LEO which is why the JWST's placement in a Lagrange point is ideal, Stable orbit.
Relaying information from the far side of moon is a lesser issue than the other problems you introduced with your brilliant plan.

On a side note: the Nickel-Hydrogen batteries that were replaced on the ISS a few weeks ago are likely to be disposed of with the latest Cygnus resupply ship that launched 2 days ago. When that mission gets closer to re-entry I can let you know where you need to go so that you can put your tongue to the sky and Taste the Nickel™.

[ZenOps]

Please, NASA are idiots, and liars. Sexist and Racist. They are also elitist for giving false data to India and Israel so that they wasted time, effort, money, and pride on their moon lander attempts. I would not be surprised if Trump defunded them, like he will likely defund California firefighters.

The reason we cannot have a quality observatory on earth is because of atmosphere and moon glare. Both of which are not issues on the far side of the moon.

As mentioned, when the sun sets on the moon and it goes into its two week long lunar night, it is a far superior observatory site as it is impossible for any stray radiation to bounce off earth. If NASA continues to spend money on inferior and imaginative (imaginary) projects, that is their prerogative. But I'd rather have real results.

Satellites in geostationary usually only contain about 12 years of fuel. The moon requires zero fuel to stay in orbit. China built the wall to last. A nuclear heated, fully automated moon based observatory could remain operational for several thousand years, with near zero cost to maintain.

[Buster]

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You do know that the "Dark Side" of the moon is not permanently dark right? Solar panels work just fine over there (ask your pals in China).
The glare off the earth would be nonexistent, however the glare from the Sun would be an extreme impediment to the observation of anything that is not said Sun.
Fuel to stay in orbit may be a concern in LEO which is why the JWST's placement in a Lagrange point is ideal, Stable orbit.
Relaying information from the far side of moon is a lesser issue than the other problems you introduced with your brilliant plan.

On a side note: the Nickel-Hydrogen batteries that were replaced on the ISS a few weeks ago are likely to be disposed of with the latest Cygnus resupply ship that launched 2 days ago. When that mission gets closer to re-entry I can let you know where you need to go so that you can put your tongue to the sky and Taste the Nickel™.

Not sure what china has to do with it (then again I can only see one half of your conversation and i can only imagine the nonsense being spewed by the other side of it, lol). But China hasn't accomplished jack shit since it invented fireworks. It's just a billion people milling around between a desert and the ocean. Other than the national talent for stealing other country's intellectual property and turning its own populace into iPhone building slaves.

Anyway, the reason they are placing the telescope where they are is so that they can have the earth, moon, and sun all on one side of the telescope being covered by the heat shield.

[e31]

Once operational I hope the JWST gets a moment to re-image the area of Hubble Deep Field, not only to overlay spectrum for scientific purposes, but to underline how much resolving power those huge mirrors will have in comparison to Hubble.

Sincere apologies for my earlier post to everyone who has Zenops on block; I should not have quoted a mental invalid.

[Buster]

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Once operational I hope the JWST gets a moment to re-image the area of Hubble Deep Field, not only to overlay spectrum for scientific purposes, but to underline how much resolving power those huge mirrors will have in comparison to Hubble.

Sincere apologies for my earlier post to everyone who has Zenops on block; I should not have quoted a mental invalid.

lol.

The James Webb has a ton of advantages. In the case of the deep field area, it will allow us to see further/younger/dimmer/more redshifted objects, not necessarily a "sharper" image in the way we might think of sharper optics. We will be able to look farther back in time.

[ZenOps]

Well. I'm just saying what all earth based observatories say: It sucks when its a night and you have a little bit of moisture in the air and the moon is quarter to full anywhere in the sky, which automatically means there isn't really a whole lot you can observe on that night. It also sucks to have to compensate for variances in things like Carbon dioxide emissions being heavier one day than another.

The problem with a satellite is double, you get reflected glare off the earth and the moon.

The earths atmosphere does extend past the moon, a very thin hydrogen. But at least its not cloud.

The perfect spot, is without doubt, the dark side of the moon. It would be technically difficult to keep a robot alive over the lunar night, but that does not override the fact that it is the superior spot. I stand by my original statement (including NASA are retards) No sun and no atmosphere with no reflections means -273 degrees Celsius or closer to absolute zero (no radiation) which is EXACTLY what you want.

I did consider taking the aerospace path an age ago, then NASA proved themselves liars and then retards. No doubt China will be first to do this one, although China space agency are also dickwads, because they never tell NASA when they have exceeded their capability (lie about not being able to do things, which means no technology sharing the "other" way) When I say NASA are retards and dickwads, don't get me wrong - it is actually true of all space agencies around the world.

[D'z Nutz]

JWST finally launched this morning! Next milestones will be sunshield and mirror deployments enroute to L2.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...mission-galaxy

[ExtraSlow]

I like space telescopes!

[D'z Nutz]

Image comparisons between the Hubble and JWST

https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/

[jutes]

This planet and it's problems are so insignificant.

[suntan]

I dunno, there is a very good chance we are the only sentient intelligent lifeforms in the galaxy.