James Webb Telescope News thread

[UltraMega]

Quote

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope launched at 7:20 a.m. EST Saturday on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, South America.

 

A joint effort with ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency, the Webb observatory is NASA’s revolutionary flagship mission to seek the light from the first galaxies in the early universe and to explore our own solar system, as well as planets orbiting other stars, called exoplanets. 

 

“The James Webb Space Telescope represents the ambition that NASA and our partners maintain to propel us forward into the future,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The promise of Webb is not what we know we will discover; it’s what we don’t yet understand or can’t yet fathom about our universe. I can’t wait to see what it uncovers!”

 

Ground teams began receiving telemetry data from Webb about five minutes after launch. The Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket performed as expected, separating from the observatory 27 minutes into the flight. The observatory was released at an altitude of approximately 870 miles (1,400 kilometers). Approximately 30 minutes after launch, Webb unfolded its solar array, and mission managers confirmed that the solar array was providing power to the observatory. After solar array deployment, mission operators will establish a communications link with the observatory via the Malindi ground station in Kenya, and ground control at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore will send the first commands to the spacecraft.

 

Engineers and ground controllers will conduct the first of three mid-course correction burns about 12 hours and 30 minutes after launch, firing Webb’s thrusters to maneuver the spacecraft on an optimal trajectory toward its destination in orbit about 1 million miles from Earth.

 

“I want to congratulate the team on this incredible achievement – Webb’s launch marks a significant moment not only for NASA, but for thousands of people worldwide who dedicated their time and talent to this mission over the years,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Webb’s scientific promise is now closer than it ever has been. We are poised on the edge of a truly exciting time of discovery, of things we’ve never before seen or imagined.”

 

The world’s largest and most complex space science observatory will now begin six months of commissioning in space. At the end of commissioning, Webb will deliver its first images. Webb carries four state-of-the-art science instruments with highly sensitive infrared detectors of unprecedented resolution. Webb will study infrared light from celestial objects with much greater clarity than ever before. The premier mission is the scientific successor to NASA’s iconic Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, built to complement and further the scientific discoveries of these and other missions.

NASA's Webb Telescope Launches to See First Galaxies, Distant Worlds | NASA

 

I will update this thread as new news and information comes out. I'll probably change the title later on to better represent the ongoing news coverage. Anyone who has interesting info or thoughts on this, feel free to update this thread as well! 

 

 

 

 

Update:

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2022 by UltraMega

[UltraMega]

Additional info:

 

James Webb Space Telescope - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Spoiler

The James Webb Space Telescope has an expected mass about half of Hubble Space Telescope's, but its primary mirror, a 6.5 m (21 ft) diameter gold-coated beryllium reflector will have a collecting area over six times as large, 25.4 m2 (273 sq ft), using 18 hexagonal mirrors with 0.9 m2 (9.7 sq ft) obscuration for the secondary support struts.

 

 

JWST is designed primarily for near-infrared astronomy, but can also see orange and red visible light, as well as the mid-infrared region, depending on the instrument. The design emphasizes the near to mid-infrared for three main reasons:

• high-redshift objects have their visible emissions shifted into the infrared
• cold objects such as debris disks and planets emit most strongly in the infrared
• this band is difficult to study from the ground or by existing space telescopes such as Hubble

 

Ground-based telescopes must look through Earth's atmosphere, which is opaque in many infrared bands (see figure of atmospheric absorption). Even where the atmosphere is transparent, many of the target chemical compounds, such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane, also exist in the Earth's atmosphere, vastly complicating analysis. Existing space telescopes such as Hubble cannot study these bands since their mirrors are insufficiently cool (the Hubble mirror is maintained at about 15 °C (288 K; 59 °F)) thus the telescope itself radiates strongly in the infrared bands.

 

JWST will operate near the Earth–Sun L2 (Lagrange point), approximately 1,500,000 km (930,000 mi) beyond Earth's orbit. By way of comparison, Hubble orbits 550 km (340 mi) above Earth's surface, and the Moon is roughly 400,000 km (250,000 mi) from Earth. This distance made post-launch repair or upgrade of JWST hardware virtually impossible with the spaceships available during the telescope design and fabrication stage. Objects near this Lagrange point can orbit the Sun in synchrony with the Earth, allowing the telescope to remain at a roughly constant distance and with constant orientation of the single heatshield and the Bus toward the earth and the sun to block heat and light from the Sun and Earth and maintain communications. This arrangement will keep the temperature of the spacecraft below 50 K (−223 °C; −370 °F), necessary for infrared observations.

 

 

 

This image gives an idea of why the larger size of the JWSC will allow it to see more distant objects. Because light gets essentially stretched out more and more the further it travels, a larger telescope is needed to see it. 

[pio]

Very interesting stuff.  Been keeping my eye on this for a while, still not sure how I feel about it lol.  On one hand, what they're proposing is just, wow.  Seeing the beginning of the universe......  But on the other hand, how's this going to affect things outside of science?  Is this going to prove creationism, the big bang theory, or any other explanation to how the universe was created?  I mean, what are they actually going to see with this thing?  Don't get me wrong, I think this is fantastic, and hopefully it'll help answer some questions that are older than a millennium.  But....guess we'll see!  I'm just not sure that humanity is ready for something like this, but I hope I'm wrong on that.

[UltraMega]

31 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Very interesting stuff.  Been keeping my eye on this for a while, still not sure how I feel about it lol.  On one hand, what they're proposing is just, wow.  Seeing the beginning of the universe......  But on the other hand, how's this going to affect things outside of science?  Is this going to prove creationism, the big bang theory, or any other explanation to how the universe was created?  I mean, what are they actually going to see with this thing?  Don't get me wrong, I think this is fantastic, and hopefully it'll help answer some questions that are older than a millennium.  But....guess we'll see!  I'm just not sure that humanity is ready for something like this, but I hope I'm wrong on that.

When people say this thing is a time machine, what they really mean is it will see light from sources that are really far away and because light takes time to travel through space, the further away something is the further back in time we see it as. Like how it takes 8 minutes for light to travel from the sun to the earth, so if you look at the sun from earth you are seeing it how it looked 8 minutes ago. Likewise, if you look at a galaxy that's 10 billion light-years away, you see it as it looked 10 billion years ago except actually it will look a lot more red due to the light being stretched out when it travels over great distances.  

[GanjaSMK]

I have reset my calendar several times now and just finally updated for an early morning PST wake up notification.  VERY excited.

[UltraMega]

Updated info, this video has a good explanation of the overall mission plan:

 

 

[Supercrumpet]

I've been loosely following information on this, and I'm really excited to see what comes of this project. Thanks for compiling info and updates all in one place!

[tenchimuyo93]

I have been waiting on the James Webb to launch for a long time. Can't wait to see what it can see, kinda like when Hubble did the Deep field and Ultra Deep feild.

[Supercrumpet]

Antenna deployed today.

 

James Webb Space Telescope successfully deploys antenna | Space

WWW.SPACE.COM

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The antenna will eventually beam Webb's cosmic images to Earth.

 

[Supercrumpet]

Forward sunshield pallet structure lowered today.

 

Forward Pallet Structure Lowered, Beginning Multiple-Day Sunshield Deployment – James Webb Space Telescope

BLOGS.NASA.GOV

 

[UltraMega]

NASA: Webb's precision launch, correction maneuvers will significantly extend 10-year lifetime

WWW.TECHSPOT.COM

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The observatory should now have enough propellant to support science operations well past its 10-year...

 

 

Apparently the launch had gone so well so far that the telescope has extra fuel now, and can thus last longer. 

 

 

[tenchimuyo93]

 

 

[UltraMega]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nasa-s-new-space-telescope-hunky-dory-after-problems-fixed/ar-AASo9gJ?ocid=ARWLCHR&PC=EMMX01

 

Looks like the sun shield is working properly. 

[GanjaSMK]

Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Data, pictures and more please, Mr. Webb Telescope.

Please share something sooner than 6 months, pwwwwwwitttttty please?

[iamjanco]

I'm enjoying its trek outward as well, regardless of what they end up learning as the result(s) of its trip.

 

Further reading: If we live in a multiverse, then Where Is Everybody Else?

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by iamjanco

[UltraMega]

16 minutes ago, iamjanco said:

 

Further reading: If we live in a multiverse, then Where Is Everybody Else?

 

Fermi paradox applied to multiverse... 

 

 

Multiverse isn't something I follow much even though I would say astronomy is a hobby like interest of mine, it's just too speculative to be all that interesting; but as I understand it other universes wouldn't necessarily have the same fundamental rules. Something like atomic forces being ever so slightly different from ours would result in a universe that probably wouldn't even form general elements so the Fermi paradox probably wouldn't really apply. Well not only that but the Fermi paradox asks why we haven't found other life yet, and for any life in another universe, that's definitely why we haven't found it... being in another universe and all. 

 

There is an interesting podcast I listened to a while back with Edward Snowden and he talked about how alien life could easily use cosmic background noise to hide interstellar signals and the encryption would be so strong we'd never find it. It's also possible there is life out there and they have some kind of interstellar government (or federation perhaps) that has rules about avoiding contact with less advanced worlds like ours. 

 

Then again one of the aspects of the Fermi paradox is that life can be common but just never lasts that long. Perhaps in nature, anytime a species evolves intelligence they end up eventually consuming all the resources on their planet or just don't last for various other reasons, maybe viruses. The way things are going on our world, it doesn't seem far fetched at all that our species may not last too long. 

[Supercrumpet]

Photons Incoming: Webb Team Begins Aligning the Telescope – James Webb Space Telescope

BLOGS.NASA.GOV

 

[ArchStanton]

Total waste of time.  We already know its turtles all the way down...

[UltraMega]

New comparison image from NASA. Definitely a lot higher res. 


 

How the James Webb Space Telescope beat all expectations - Big Think

BIGTHINK.COM

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It was supposed to have a 5.5-10 year lifetime, and take 6 months to calibrate. It's performing better than anyone anticipated.

 

[bonami2]

This is so cool  i was looking into star photography some week ago pretty complicated hobby.

 

I wonder if we ever gonna find a planet with something that alive.

[Supercrumpet]

11 hours ago, UltraMega said:

New comparison image from NASA. Definitely a lot higher res. 


 

How the James Webb Space Telescope beat all expectations - Big Think

BIGTHINK.COM

---

It was supposed to have a 5.5-10 year lifetime, and take 6 months to calibrate. It's performing better than anyone anticipated.

 

 

Amazing comparison. Only increases my excitement for this project.

[UltraMega]

 

Quote

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.

 

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks.

 

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.

 

This image is among the telescope’s first-full color images. The full suite will be released Tuesday, July 12, beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT, during a live NASA TV broadcast. 

 

NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet | NASA

Edited July 11, 2022 by UltraMega

[pio]

nvm.

Edited July 12, 2022 by pioneerisloud

[Supercrumpet]

6 hours ago, UltraMega said:

 

 

NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet | NASA

 

Saw this earlier today. When you just glance at the image, it may appear as some random lights on a black background, but once you start to understand you're looking at and learn about the numbers associated with it, this becomes seriously fascinating stuff.

[UltraMega]

Left: Webb, Right: Hubble 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by UltraMega