James Webb Space Telescope

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by geordief, Dec 24, 2021.

  1. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Which is more exciting/important ;this launch or the parachute descent to Mars?

    Or other?
     
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  3. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    this one

    mars lander does not have the scope of this telescope
    the telescope will work for decades & bring in massive data
    the mars lander, while technical & brilliant
    is a specialist smaller scope device with a different purpose.

    apples with bananas
     
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  5. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    James Webb is by far more important.
     
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  7. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Which is/was more exciting?
     
  8. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    More exciting? That crazy rocket sky crane landing that delivered automobile-sized and nuclear powered Perseverance (and its little friend the Ingenuity helicopter) to Mars. I about fell out of my chair when that actually worked.

    More important? Both about equal in their own ways, I guess. I expect that JWST will deliver all kinds of cool astronomical discoveries.

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  9. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    both james web or the mars rover could detect the next gen super mineral which may be used to build space ships or semiconductors etc.
     
  10. geordief Valued Senior Member

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  11. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    The Webb telescope will be important. It's an amazing feat of engineering to construct it and put it in place. But there are still lots of things that could go wrong. Still, with its $10 billion price tag, I think we can assume that the people putting it together and launching it have been very careful and have worked very hard to try to anticipate potential problems.

    Since Webb will be orbiting the L2 Lagrange point of the Earth, it will be inaccessible for any servicing from Earth, so if it has any hardware problem (like the one that Hubble had, say), there will be nothing anybody on Earth can do about it.
    Only for one decade, I think. After that, the fuel to point it, and adjust its orbit if necessary, will run out.
     
  12. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Are we there yet?

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  13. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Not quite

    Seems was not quite on correct course

    https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-webb-space-telescope-makes-time-critical-mid-course-correction-burn/

    Extract

    At 7:50 pm EST, on December 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope initiated its first course correction burn to adjust its trajectory toward its final orbit. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

    Hopefully soon - few months

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  14. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    But it gets to its destination quite soon,doesn't it? 4 days? 14 days?

    Can take a short rest then and have a bit of a stretch

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  15. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    https://earthsky.org/space/james-webb-space-telescope-30-days-of-terror/

    Extract

    This telescope, under development for decades, has hundreds of moving parts that will need to unfold properly on its month-long trip to its final destination

    That makes destination date 25th January

    I did hear someone from this forum wants the telescope to focus on Earth and take sharp photos of UFOs whizzing around our atmosphere

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  16. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Think I may have read that the journey is 4 times the distance to the Moon

    I was amazed when it lifted off and , about a half hour into its journey the cover was taken off the actual (folded up) telescope
    .
    You could see the delicate gossamer like fabric hurtling along at thousands of mph relative to us but with zero hint of movement as,presumably it was no longer accelerating + the fact there was no atmosphere .
     
  17. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Parking orbit for telescope

    https://www-space-com.cdn.ampprojec.../james-webb-space-telescope-beyond-moon-orbit

    Extract

    This location is nearly 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth on the side opposite the sun.

    More extract

    As of Tuesday, Webb was more than 293,000 miles (471,000 kilometers) from Earth. The average distance from Earth to the moon is about 240,000 miles (384,000 km).

    . ..busy evening! Not only did we just complete our second burn, but #NASAWebb also passed the altitude of the Moon as it keeps cruising on to the second Lagrange point .......

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  18. geordief Valued Senior Member

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  19. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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  20. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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  21. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Is the sunshield fully deployed now?

    Have the 5 layers been stretched out and are they separate from each other like 5 parallel planes?

    If so ,they are motoring.

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    Guess those layers are not made out of baking foil.
     
  22. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Not yet. I think the people working on this are taking a break.

    The sunshield has been extended out along both booms, so that the final diamond shape of the shield is now established, but final tensioning of the 5 shield layers into their separated configuration hasn't taken place yet.
    Kapton coated with a silicon layer and something else, I think. Their main function is to reflect infrared radiation, to prevent solar infrared on the sun side of the telescope from reaching the telescope and primary instruments on the dark side.
     
  23. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    From the NASA site

    "Tensioning of all 5 layers of the sunshield is complete which puts the sunshield in its fully deployed state."

    Not bad.
     

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