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Space exploration: Where do we go from here?
- Thread starter joecct
- Start date
MichVandal
Well-known member
Lame because why? As far as I know, this has always been the plan, and so far, JWST is 100% nominal in terms of how it's going. We may get observations in 6 months, but it's going to take a much longer time until all of that is digested and discoveries are made. Hubble made some nice pictures early on, but it was quite a while until real discoveries happened.
aparch
Well-known member
The operating temps are what the mirrors are calibrated for, correct? And that's why the wait?
Agreed that it's gonna be well over a year before we see real groundbreaking data from Webb.
Also, weren't some of those "fancy" photos Hubble took still useless until she shuttle mission to affix a contact lens to Hubble to correct its astgmatism?
Agreed that it's gonna be well over a year before we see real groundbreaking data from Webb.
Also, weren't some of those "fancy" photos Hubble took still useless until she shuttle mission to affix a contact lens to Hubble to correct its astgmatism?
MichVandal
Well-known member
The sensors have to run at that temp, too- actually, it's more important for the sensors to be so cold than the mirrors. And they have a secondary cooling system using helium. Has to be that cold to detect the longer wavelength IR.
I think quite a bit of the mirror aiming is going to happen while the system cools down. From what I understand- there's two phases to the mirrors- one is the basic aiming so they are all looking at the right spot, and then each mirror gets individually shaped. The latter part really blowing my mind that they are doing that. Basically, counteracting the very thing that happened to hubble- even though they are ground to not have that happen. The mirror system engineering is amazing.
MichVandal
Well-known member
Yea, it's not really self explanatory- otherwise I would not be asking. I would try to point out something else.
If that blows your mind, read up on Adaptive Optics. They have deformable mirrors that react in real-time to atmospheric distortion to increase transmission throughput for laser-based communication systems - the mirror shape updates ~1000 times per second.
Kepler
Cornell Big Red
Does it still? Is that because they need months and months of observations to build the data set for a given location? Or is it the sheer complexity that even with our computing power it still takes months? (Hey, maybe divert that bitcoin mining capacity...)
Kepler
Cornell Big Red
Is that on a micrometer scale? Less? Waaaaaaay less?
dxmnkd316
Lucia Apologist
Let me be more careful with words. THe digesting might take shorter, but the academic process still takes months. Digest, match against hypothesis, verify discrepancies, write the paper, pre-print, comments, revise, print, etc.
Kepler
Cornell Big Red
Ah. Gotcha.
dxmnkd316
Lucia Apologist
The pretty "pictures" might take less. There's a lot of interest and pressure from the general public (relative to normal 21st century science levels) to see something.
tl;dr - �¯\_(?)_/�¯
edit :-/
MichVandal
Well-known member
Yea, we have to not forget that the entire intention of this scope is to see stuff we've never seen before. So to understand that will take a while.
I watched a show on Netflix last evening about black holes- from the 5 days of observation to just process the pictures took at least 2 years. This may not be that, but to actually understand what you are looking at....
MichVandal
Well-known member
nano.
dxmnkd316
Lucia Apologist
Yeah, i wonder if they don't observe and release a known object first. Like pillars of creation or sombrero or something like that.
MichVandal
Well-known member
I wonder if they will release pictures of the star they use to calibrate everything. That view will be unique, too.
BTW, interesting thing about the pillars of creation- being that that is mostly dust, JWST won't see nearly the same thing- as it will see through most of it. At least that's what they are suggesting.
Kepler
Cornell Big Red
What's a black hole look like in infrared?
Russell Jaslow
Registered User
Your last sentence answers your first question.
GE screwed up the original Hubble because they insisted a certain test was not needed. Kodak said it was needed. The test had to do with temperatures affecting the curvature of the mirror. GE's solution was cheaper, so NASA chose them.
Of course, it cost us more in the long run. NASA went back to Kodak (who got the contract to build the backup mirror), and told them to take that backup mirror out of storage and run those tests GE insisted weren't necessary, and then figure out a way to fix Hubble in space.
MichVandal
Well-known member
Webb is now gathering photons.
With the first image, they have been able to identify each mirror (as the star shows up 18 times), and now the process is to focus each mirror by itself, and then aim the mirrors to get one image.
As part of that- they took a selfie- to check other alignment. Pretty crazy that they set it up to do that. In the selfie, you see all 18 mirrors as well as shadows of instruments. The image, the team took as a very positive thing.
Freaking cool.
With the first image, they have been able to identify each mirror (as the star shows up 18 times), and now the process is to focus each mirror by itself, and then aim the mirrors to get one image.
As part of that- they took a selfie- to check other alignment. Pretty crazy that they set it up to do that. In the selfie, you see all 18 mirrors as well as shadows of instruments. The image, the team took as a very positive thing.
Freaking cool.