Webb Space Telescope - all Deployments Completed

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Dennis P Brown
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Webb Space Telescope - all Deployments Completed

Post by Dennis P Brown »

The IR Webb Observatory is on its way to the Lagrangian orbital point. All critical deployments for the telescope went flawlessly.

See this site for details on deployments:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/

And this site for orbit progress/telescope state:
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunc ... sWebb.html
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Richard Hull
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Re: Webb Space Telescope - all Deployments Completed

Post by Richard Hull »

This is great news as there were so many steps that could have immediately rendered the entire thing an elegant but failed piece of space junk.....AND.... it ain't sending back any data yet. Still more crossed fingers but a big sigh of relief, as well.

Wouldn't it be a kick in the ass if there is an over-riding, unsuspected, universal or extremely distant, creational, Thermal haze that renders the entire effort a bit "blinded by the light". IR is easily absorbed and then re-emitted. Lotta' early hot gas in the beginning. Intense back lighting from the big bang in the IR could be a good thing or a very bad thing........... Ooops! If they can filter for various IR wavelengths, which I assume they can, that might reveal much more than expected in and of itself.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Webb Space Telescope - all Deployments Completed

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Yes, they have a lot still to do before any science can occur - from more internal devices to 'unlock' and test, mirrors that need to move into position (a full centimeter from launch position), and then put all these mirrors into simultaneous 'phase' using just nanometer steps at temps under 40 K. Then the entire system and instruments need to cool down enough to see data above noise levels generated by the mirrors and structures.

Since this has instruments that are only good from near to mid IR wavelengths (a NIR, 0.6 to 5 um; and MIR, 5 to 26 um), the fog due to the back ground cosmic 'microwave radiation' will not be an issue - it can't detect radiation that long. That is, it can't see that far back in "time". It should see some of the (later) early generation suns that finally managed to burn through the 'dark' period that occurred very early in the Universe's history (100+ million years) but you are correct: that period will be hit or miss for exactly how 'far back in time' it can see due to the fog of ionized matter - maybe only 400 million years after the start of the universe.

Regardless, the exoplanets such as the TRAPPIST-1 system can be explored in a manner no current scope can do. Webb should be capable of telling us about the various atmospheres (if any) on these planets (and other exoplanets) and possibly their composition. It will see significantly further back then Hubble in any case and give good views of early galaxy formation. Maybe add to details on the event horizon of nearby Black Holes. Of course, it might very well answer some questions we hadn't even thought to ask - and those can, sometimes, be some of the best answers that advance scientific understanding of the Universe.

While it has now finished the tasks that have never before been performed in space - and these tasks will be required of any future large telescopes that they plan to build - it still is just a piece of semi-operating hardware with a lot of potential but no current capabilities. So you are correct, JWST still has a long way to go before we see any results (Maybe this summer.)

One should keep in mind that this scope costs about what a single aircraft carrier costs to build (though only a tiny fraction of that weapon system's complete outfitted and protection cost) it is a huge gamble by NASA; failure would both set back space research by a decade or more and make any future large scopes more unlikely. But victory is often seized by the bold and NASA is getting good at that practice (and yes, that is generally costly to get right the first time (see current Mars rover) but that is what they are trying and hopefully, achieving with the JWST.)
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