If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Neither Big Nor Small: What The Earliest Galaxies Looked Like - Indra's Webb
A set of $10bn self portraits?
CSN were right 'we are star dust'
Gassho
M
Well, perhaps much more than realizing that we are made of the same stuff, the same molecules, this is the realization that this is you and you are this that and the other thing in most intimate and profound sense, as much as the nose on you face and heart beating in your chest, and any neuron between your ears is you. It is just so.
Webb Space Telescope Showcases Its Incredible Power: Detects Water on Distant Planet
In a remarkable dream come true for exoplaneteers, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated its unprecedented capacity to analyze the atmosphere of an exoplanet more than 1,000 light-years away. With the combined forces of its 270-square-foot (25-square-meter) mirror, precision spectrographs, and sensitive detectors, Webb has – in a single observation – detected the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations.
... Over the past two decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has analyzed numerous exoplanet atmospheres , capturing the first clear detection of water in 2013. However, Webb’s immediate and more detailed observation marks an enormous leap forward in the quest to characterize potentially habitable planets beyond Earth.
What's crazy to me is that jwst deployed perfectly with little errors. I was listening to a podcast with the project manager as a guest and he was saying that there were so many opportunities for it to go wrong. But it is operational and we have these pictures as a result.
What's crazy to me is that jwst deployed perfectly with little errors. I was listening to a podcast with the project manager as a guest and he was saying that there were so many opportunities for it to go wrong. But it is operational and we have these pictures as a result.
Gassho
Stlah
There is a great little film about that which I posted in our "Technology and Robots" thread awhile back, of just the heat shield test on the ground, only one step in the process. I sent it to my son, the future engineer, to inspire him.
"Unfolding Webb's sunshield in space is an incredible milestone, crucial to the success of the mission," said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb's program director at NASA Headquarters, in a statement. "Thousands of parts had to work with precision for this marvel of engineering to fully unfurl. The team has accomplished an audacious feat with the complexity of this deployment -- one of the boldest undertakings yet for Webb."
The massive five-layer sunshield will protect Webb's giant mirror and instruments from the sun's heat. Both the mirror and instruments need to be kept at a very frigid negative 370 degrees Fahrenheit (negative 188 degrees Celsius) to be able to observe the universe as designed. Each of the five sheets is as thin as a human hair and is coated with reflective metal.
When Webb launched, the sunshield was folded up to fit inside the Ariane 5 rocket that carried the telescope into space. The eight-day process to unfold and tighten the protective shield began on December 28. This included unfolding the support structure for the shield over the course of multiple days before the tensioning, or tightening, of each layer could begin.
Comment