-PJ
Posted on 12/25/2021 11:37:59 AM PST by Fractal Trader
The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America’s northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the Christmas morning sky.
The $10 billion observatory hurtled toward its destination 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away, or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning the cosmos.
First, the telescope’s enormous mirror and sunshield need to unfurl; they were folded origami-style to fit into the rocket's nose cone. Otherwise, the observatory won’t be able to peer back in time 13.7 billion years as anticipated, within a mere 100 million years of the universe-forming Big Bang.
“It’s going to give us a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search that’s eternal,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said earlier this week.
But he cautioned: “When you want a big reward, you have to usually take a big risk.”
Intended as a successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope, the long-delayed James Webb is named after NASA’s administrator during the 1960s. NASA partnered with the European and Canadian space agencies to build and launch the new 7-ton telescope, with thousands of people from 29 countries working on it since the 1990s.
With the launch falling on Christmas and a global surge in COVID-19 cases, there were fewer spectators at the French Guiana launch site than expected. Nelson bowed out along with a congressional delegation and many contractors who worked on the telescope.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Yes,there’s an app for that.
a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life.
>>>
Its going to give us a better understanding of our universe and our place in it: who we are, what we are, the search thats eternal, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said earlier this week.
But he cautioned: When you want a big reward, you have to usually take a big risk.
Only if the gavernous modulator is functioning properly.
Genesis is the only trustworthy account of creation written by the Lord who was there and made it all happen by the word of His power.
-PJ
If they have been making this since the 90s, what are they working on now?
75,000 from earth right now.
Gee, I figured they'd have it orbit earth for a while to make sure everything was okay before sending it on it's way.
Gee, I figured they’d have it orbit earth for a while to make sure everything was okay before sending it on it’s way.
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That would have taken more fuel to first do and orbital burn and then a separate burn to head out the 1M miles to the L2 Lagrange Point. The telescope itself is folded up much like a piece of origami and I’m not sure it would survive the trip to L2 in an “unfurled” state.
There is also the peculiar issue that this telescope operates in the infrared, and requires deep-space cold and shielding from the sun to operate. So an orbital path around the Earth really wouldn’t allow for a full checkout of the systems such as they could do back when Hubble was launched. Hubble is, of course, a classic optical telescope.
I thought the same. Those complicated 'unfoldings' apparently went flawlessly. Yipee
Imsure hope no engineers were wearing racy shirts.
Good points.
See post #32. It’s going to spend the next 30 days unfurling itself. Hold onto your seat; it could be quite a ride!
Absolutely. My son works at nasa. His first job there was as a data tech on a 20 year old solar observation satellite.
His job was shooting pictures of the sun.
A good friend of his is one of the engineers on the Webb telescope.
Thanks. A lot more to go.
Yes. It will sit at the second Lagrangian
L3 did the grinding. I was part of the metrology team. All the fancy equipment we used says we did good
L2 is a lagranfian point. You were redundant
Thanks for the link. Cool video. I had no idea how complicated the “unfurling” was for this telescope. Almost like one of those old ships-in-a bottle where the masts and sails are raised after inserting the ship in the bottle.
Can we get a clear picture of a UFO now? 🤪
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