Ah, Now I see, it needs to be below 50Kelvin in order to see infrared light and not produce any itself. Crazy. So its cooling down but not there yet, we need to drop about another 40F to get there
Final latch move about to commence. If successful, L2 insertion insertion, removal of mirror hardstops, calibrating the primary and secondary mirror, instrument checkover, image calibration is basically all we have left.
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-fuel-20-years TLDR: they nailed the launch and midcourse correction navigation and have roughly doubled the expected mission time
That's amazing. I saw this morning we are 80% of the way to L2 and I think they start adjusting the mirror alignments tommorow
A kilometer-wide asteroid will make its closest pass by Earth next week https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/11/world/asteroid-earth-flyby-scn/index.html
Definitely the most high-quality photos I’ve seen. Also, would love to think that some of those perfect circle indentions aren’t simply from meteors, but some are from alien spacecraft landing on the moon.
Only thing is left is L2 insertion and then it's time to start her up and start final calibrations Crazy
I was wondering why they were putting it in Orbit at L2 vs in the stable point. The solar power makes a lot of sense.
I guess I didn't realize L2 was stable without the orbit that Webb is doing. Makes me wonder why this decision was made instead of a stable point and a nuclear battery like Voyager. There would be no need for the occasional adjustment burns and that battery would last 50ish years.
I was thinking having an onboard power source might fuck with the insanely sensitive IR camera, so you put the power source 5 solar shields away from the camera.
The trajectory usually takes it out over the Atlantic so a lot of stuff like that you can’t really see aside from the launch and eventually just a bright spec in the sky
That whole launch last night was awesome to see. Watched with my son, we saw separation, cold thrusters on the booster return, entry burn, we could see the separation of the phalanx, the sonic booms. It was just super cool.
yeah that was definitely the best launch we've seen, watched from the backyard and got everything but the sonic booms. even the wife was excited about it
i think i'm going to sign up for this https://glasscock.rice.edu/course?id=28487 Over the past two and half decades, more than 4,500 planets have been discovered orbiting other stars in our galaxy. These discoveries have galvanized interest among scientists and the general public in some of the oldest questions humankind has considered: How did we get here? Are we alone? Observations from a new generation of telescopes and instruments are providing important new clues to answer these questions. Learn about current theories of planet formation, the observations modern astronomers use to test these ideas and the history of our current understanding of the solar system’s formation. We also consider the prospects for finding life elsewhere in our solar system and in our near galactic neighborhood. In addition, the course considers how new observations with next-generation telescopes and satellites will answer many questions related to our understanding of life in the universe and our place within it.
duh but seriously, rice apparently has like dozens of classes each month for adults who want to continue learning
Looks like they already synced up into one: Webb turns those 18 separate star images into a single unified star. Next comes even better focus. https://www.universetoday.com/15468...nified-star-next-comes-even-better-focus/amp/
The artist rendering that video has watched too many scifi movies, as empty fuel tanks operating in a vacuum are not prone to creating huge fireballs.