DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... James Webb Telescope Successfully Launched

It's going to be pins and needles for a while until things are operational, but I am looking forward to what can be discovered. The difference between this and Hubble is like the difference between the microscope you used in HS biology lab and an electron microscope. Well, maybe not quite, but pretty close. Hope all goes as planned, but a successful launch is a good first step.

A million miles in 6 months, When it arrives at its destination, it'll unfold it self , stretch and point.. during all this, the tension anxiety excitement all sorts of hope and emotions... only one chance ! it has to work !


What it will show us if it works will be amazing ! it very well could make non believers believers and believers non believers !



Launched on Christmas day ! Merry Christmas Universe and to the ones that will be discovered !

This is equivalent to the Super Bowl for nerds like me.

People smarter than us doing things we can only imagine. People smarter than us making us smarter by their efforts. The biggest, most sophisticated time machine we've ever built just might give us a Polaroid shot of Da Bang... or get us substantially closer than ever before.

I'm pretty sure that for the past few weeks, Neal DeGrasse Tyson has been sleeping on his back all night- out of necessity.

This is getting less coverage than the original moon shot, but most probably will be much more valuable./insightful.


This is very, very big.

It probably will be more valuable than the moonshot, but it probably won't be as impactful. Hubble will probably be more impactful to the average Joe like us. I think most of the images will be geared towards people who know what they are looking at....much like a radiologist looking at some MRI and me looking at one.

As you said, looking back in time is a cool thought. Seeing what things were like millions, maybe billions? of year ago. I wonder if we get to the point where we will see nothing? Is that before time? Is that as far as we can see inside our own little orb or atom in which we exist? Do we want to see that?

What fascinates me is that it takes 300 moves in order for it to work. All 300 moves have to work, if one move fails then the mission ends.

James Webb will also produce pretty fantastic images (speaking from the perspective of popular science). It's got a larger field of view and higher resolution than Hubble -- and since it sees thermal gas in the infrared it will get good exposures of all the gas clouds and supernova remnants that people really like from Hubble images.

Here's Cas A in Spitzer (previous infrared telescope):



and here it is in Hubble:



JWST will be the Spitzer image, at better than Hubble resolution.

No doubt. Maybe I overstated, or neglected to point out that we will still see cool pics.

It certainly wasn't a criticism -- just wanted to point out that, of all the telescopes out there -- this is the most Hubble-like (but better!)

I'm excited to see what we can see and learn...

Doctor Who pix! This thing will be TARDIS-ish. I imagine what we are seeing or will be or was. Whatever is righter. Waiting to see it!

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

Current deployment proceeding well - and the team announced today that the rockets fired more efficiently than expected (NASA "expectations" are almost always pessimistic) -- allowing the instrument to save fuel for later course corrections that can extend the mission by at least 5 years.

First JWST Image (test image of a nearby star) was released:



"The new image centers on a star called 2MASS J17554042+6551277, according to the statement. That represents a new target for the observatory: Previous steps of the commissioning process centered on HD 84406, a star in the constellation Ursa Major that is located about 241 light-years from Earth."

The weird lines are from the fact that this is an extraordinary bright star (just because it is super close) -- and so you are seeing bleeding effects across the optics (which are expected, and accounted for in actual science analysis). Here they want to see those effects so that they can calibrate them for later.

But look at the galaxies in the background!

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-alignment-photo

This is officially very exciting.

I didn't realize it had reached its destination and was making the moves to be successful. I'm very excited about this.

This is amazing and very cool !!

Yes! The timeline is 6 months until science operation, but the trip out was only 30 days.

What takes a long time is letting the satellite cool down -- (the camera itself needs to operate at only a few degrees above absolute zero in order to do Far-Infrared photography -- otherwise, the camera would just see it own heat signature). Things don't cool fast when they are already that cold -- so it just takes time.

Also, as the satellite cools down the mirrors start to change shape (as things do when they change temperature). After they cool down all the way, they started to re-align them. I believe each mirror has to be aligned an accuracy of less than 1/1000 of a millimeter. The way they do that is pointing at bright starts, and refocusing until they get the image you see above.

This is the verification that the mirror alignment is successful (and actually has worked slightly better than specification, according to reports).

Now there is some engineering tests of pointing at other test stars, testing stabilization, etc - before they are ready to do science runs.

Great information, thank you !

Thanks for the update and info. Way cool.

I wonder if this can find a Browns SB win somewhere out there in time ?

And here's a comparison to the same image taken with Hubble (also, note that the Hubble image is a 10 day exposure, while the Webb image is a 1 day exposure):

Simply stunning.

Can't help but think about how much life is out there looking at that.

This wins the Internet today.

I made this today. Those that know will know.

Breathtaking !!

Thank you Lyuokdea !!

Well, maybe not quite, but pretty close.

I'd say the analogy was quite apt.
This is truly a game-changer.

It may be.

Regardless of the scope in which we might characterize the gain, it is huge, no doubting that.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.


Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

I wonder what the time lapse is on that image?

12 hours I believe.

Thanks

I was going to respond sarcastically with "4.6 billion years"...that's the "age" of the image. But Portland is correct... that depiction is of a composite of images taken over 12.5 hours.

It is amazing just how incredible God's creation is.

I’ve looked at these images and thought about them all week. It’s pretty breathtaking and humbling. It raises more questions than my brain can handle.

I think the image they show here with the slider is really neat:

https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphi...lescope-hubble-space-telescope-rcna37875

Very cool! That's a must-click to see the side-by-side comparison of images between the Hubble and Webb. It's crazy how much more detail we can see with infrared technology as it basically eliminates all of the "dust".

j/c:

This might be the best thread ever.