NASA's James Webb Space Telescope successfully unfolds its massive mirror:
The team behind the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope successfully finished unfolding the instrument's distinctive golden mirror on Saturday, meaning the telescope is now fully deployed and is one step closer to sending back data about the universe's first galaxies.
"The successful completion of all of the Webb Space Telescope's deployments is historic," Webb's program director at NASA Headquarters, Gregory L. Robinson, said in a release. "This is the first time a NASA-led mission has ever attempted to complete a complex sequence to unfold an observatory in space – a remarkable feat for our team, NASA, and the world."
NASA and its partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, began remotely unfolding the two wings of Webb's primary mirror on Friday and completed the task at about 10:15 a.m. PT Saturday, when the second wing latched into place.
Over the next six months, Webb is set to travel 1 million miles from Earth and begin sending back images of the universe that promise to serve up a new, unfiltered story of the cosmos. Not only will Webb teach us about hidden regions of space, it also has the power to prove whether we've correctly documented the events that happened right after the Big Bang.
Remarkably, NASA has completed deployment of the Webb space telescope:
But now that ultra complex heat shield is working. The temperature on the Sun-facing side of the telescope is 55 degrees Celsius [(131 °F)], or a very, very, very hot day in the Sahara desert . And already, the science instruments on the back side of the sunshield have cooled to -199 degrees Celsius[(-326.2 °F)], a temperature at which nitrogen is a liquid. They will yet cool further.
Work remains, of course. Webb still must traverse about 370,000 km to reach an orbit around a stable Lagrange point, L2. Scientists and engineers must check out and align the 18 primary mirror segments. Scientific instruments must be calibrated. But all of this work is somewhat more routine when it comes to science spacecraft. There are risks, to be sure, but these are mostly known risks.
We can therefore be reasonably confident now that Webb will, in fact, begin to make science observations this summer. We should, truly, be in awe.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10 2022, @01:52AM (6 children)
You act like they're launching all that money into space. Only the raw materials get launched. The money stays here and is recycled through the economy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10 2022, @02:45AM (4 children)
You're acting like the only science possible is from Webb. Astronomy has lost a decade and a half of science in other areas that were originally deemed to be sufficiently worthy to fund, but sunk costs of Webb sunk them.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Frigatebird on Monday January 10 2022, @04:53AM (2 children)
The NASA basic literacy project, exampla gratia (e.g.). Not sure what Cannoli have to do with it, unless you are making a comparison to Military spending ("Take the cannoli, leave the gun"?)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Frigatebird on Monday January 10 2022, @06:24AM
Obviously a Flamebait mod by a cannoliphobe!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10 2022, @10:42AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 10 2022, @04:23PM
> The money
couldwould not have fundedmany projects... because yachtsFTFY
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 10 2022, @04:58PM