James Webb Space Telescope is about to beam us monster amounts of cosmic data
His brother Jack would have been proud!
Posted on 07/15/2022 12:31:45 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Expect JWST to release more information faster than its predecessor telescopes.
Our tiny corner of the cosmos has just gotten bigger, brighter, and bolder, and it’s all thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). NASA just dropped some of the most high-definition images of the universe ever taken. Although the telescope began science operations merely six months ago, its first batch—including five neighboring galaxies called Stephan’s Quintet and the Carina Nebula, a gaseous expanse where stars are born—are among the most stunning celestial pictures yet made.
Inspiring wonder in space-lovers around the world is harder than it looks. A lot of work goes into making sure these cosmic close-ups photos are not only beautiful, but they reflect the astronomy community’s scientific priorities. So what exactly goes into crafting JWST’s next picture-perfect photographs?
The answers to these questions lie within the differences between JWST and its predecessor, the 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. The two have vastly different capabilities: Hubble, for one, mostly takes images inside visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. JWST captures its targets in the infrared color spectrum, light waves that are invisible to the naked eye. To create the spellbinding scenes that just debuted, scientists had to process and fill these images with color. This also explains why many pictures of the same cosmic object can look vastly different, depending on how astronomers choose to shade them.
Additionally, due to the size of its mirrors as well as its ability to see infrared light, JWST is able to peer further back into time than Hubble. According to the space agency, you can think of Hubble as able to only see “toddler galaxies,” while JWST can spy “baby galaxies.”
During a NASA press conference held on Tuesday, Eric Smith, the program scientist for the JWST mission, said JWST’s first photos are especially phenomenal because they were technically nothing more than practice runs. It seems astronomers may have been too conservative in picking early telescope targets, because when planning these projects they weren’t prepared for how good the images would be, he noted. “We’re making discoveries and we really haven’t even started trying yet, so the promise of this telescope is amazing,” Smith said.
But with the proof of the current images, Smith hopes that in JWST’s second scientific cycle, “people will be much more adventurous because they now know just how good the facility is.”
JWST can also gather more data more swiftly than Hubble. Klaus Pontoppidan, program scientist for the JWST mission, told reporters that NASA scientists spend weeks, on average, downloading and processing individual images before they’re transformed into the depictions that are released to the public.
Hubble transmits about 120 gigabytes of science data to Earth every week. Over the next few days, JWST will release roughly 50 terabytes of data—more than 400 times Hubble’s weekly transmission—to the public. The new image of JWST’s deep field, which President Biden unveiled Monday, was created from a composite of images at different wavelengths and took about 12.5 hours to complete, according to NASA. Alternatively, Hubble’s deepest fields took weeks to put together.
While NASA has not yet released a fresh target list or a timeline for new images, agency officials reported that the mission team would focus on investigating the exoplanets in the Trappist-1 system during JWST’s first full year of operation. The telescope will undergo “atmospheric reconnaissance” in a bid to learn more about the system’s atmospheres, habitability, and planetary formations.
The telescope is expected to last for a few decades. As long as it has enough fuel, and withstands the harsh realities of life in space, it should be able to operate at full capacity for that duration. During its time gazing at the stars, it will act as a sort of time machine, allowing astronomers a small sparkling window into what the universe looked like more than 13 billion years ago. Moriba Jah, an associate professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin, said the measurements the telescope beams back will not only provide the evidence needed to peer into the universe’s origins, but will inform future advances in astronomy and aerospace engineering as well.
“What we really want is to not only understand what happened, but predict what’s going to happen in the future,” he says.“If we can predict more accurately, we can make better decisions to make sure that we as a species can actually thrive in perpetuity.”
While JWST’s future looks bright at the moment, astronomers warn that space is far from empty: it’s unpredictable. Right now, the telescope lies at the second lagrange point (L2), a stable gravitational area about a million miles from Earth where objects like space junk or micrometeoroids tend to drift. But Jah points out the observatory could be wrecked in a moment, if a large piece of a rocket, a space rock, or small satellite were to collide with JWST.
Yet with so much hinging on the telescope’s continued success, it’s almost guaranteed that JWST will continue reaching for the horizon, pushing the boundaries of stellar observation for years to come.
Kewl. Can’t wait!
Toddler galaxies. Baby galaxies. What about fetus galaxies?
why is it named the “James Webb” ???
From the internet:
“Webb ran the fledgling space agency from February 1961 to October 1968. He believed that NASA had to strike a balance between human space flight and science. The man whose name NASA has chosen to bestow upon the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is most commonly linked to the Apollo moon program, not to science.”
later
More:
“Webb’s vision of a balanced program resulted in a decade of space science research that remains unparalleled today. During his tenure, NASA invested in the development of robotic spacecraft, which explored the lunar environment so that astronauts could do so later, and it sent scientific probes to Mars and Venus, giving Americans their first-ever view of the strange landscape of outer space. As early as 1965, Webb also had written that a major space telescope, then known as the Large Space Telescope, should become a major NASA effort.”
I didn’t know anything about him either - thanks for the prompt to learn more!
Ironic, isn’t it, that we are making such observational leaps just as we are discovering that the observable universe is lying to us?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dh2UL7R9II
We’re looking at the universe as it once was. Quantum gravity has reduced what we see exponentially.
First good laugh of the morning.
Don't forget "MacArthur Park"
Is the data actually released to the public (as they claim) or is it filtered by the ‘scientists’ who remove any anomalies?
There is a huge trove of interviews archived, called the Apollo Oral History Project at the JSC. You can read (or listen) to many if not most of the heavy hitters of the time period.
These guys literally wrote the book on spaceflight operations. One of the characteristics that Gene Krantz and other flight directors talk about - and Webb, I think, was the architect of this, was how important a clear chain of command and responsibilities was.
They set up a system where, the Flight Director on duty had the final say. The end. Keep in mind, there are eleventy gazillion people who might have an opinion on what needs to be done (or not done) in the heat of the moment. But they quickly learned that over-ruling people - pulling rank, as it were, was a prescription for chaos, if not outright failure.
They also established a system of “flight rules” though exhaustive testing and training and practice procedures, and had all the discussion and consensus and debate beforehand. THEN, they set out to never break those mission flight rules in real life.
The wisdom of that particular technique, is based on a keen sense of human factors or dynamics. Because the tendency ordinarily is what some have termed “the paralysis of analysis”. You get a bunch of eggheads and engineers and scientists together in a room, they will argue and discuss in perpetuity. But in a crisis, during spaceflight, a decision has to be made, within a certain timeframe.
They gave very young people extraordinary duties and responsibilities - and held them accountable. It’s my understanding, you did not want to get on Mr. Webb’s bad side. He was famous for firing people right on the spot.
Typically he would troubleshoot people, by asking a question he already knew the answer to. If you didn’t know the answer, but tried blowing smoke up his ass with word salad - GONE, DRT. He was looking for “I don’t know.” That is an acceptable answer, the only answer, in fact, if that’s the case.
Compare and contrast how a government entity staffs and operates when it really wants to accomplish a task. Bullshit artists, water walkers, etc., need not apply. It would have been challenging, but I bet it was the best job in the world at one time to be involved with that, even indirectly. All the stars lined up for that operation, and they drew in a lot of really outstanding individuals.
“small sparkling window into what the universe looked like more than 13 billion years ago”
Incredible. Light can circle the earth 7 times a second, try to count that fast, and still it took that light 13 billion years to reach us. Damn, the universe is huge, almost but not quite as big as B. Husseins ego.
Ohhhhh. MONSTER amounts!
Grow up popsci....
I took Pop Mechs for 3 or 4 months recently, trash. Not remotely as engineering focused as in days gone by.
Good barbershop read...
I wonder what is being withheld...that's where the REALLY interesting stuff is.
What they're gonna give the public is lotsa purdy pitchers.
“lotsa purdy pitchers”, no raw data. They’d likely say we would not understand it, nor be able to break anything out of their proprietary format. A double layer of protection from public inspection.
“Toddler galaxies. Baby galaxies. What about fetus galaxies?” Fetus galaxies were greatly reduced because the early universe was Democrat.
That certainly fits.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
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