• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

James Webb space telescope (JWST) launch scheduled for 24th of December.

Will JWST successfully deploy in space?

  • Yes. Good chance it goes well.

    Votes: 123 74.1%

  • No. I think something will fail. (no way to fix)

    Votes: 11 6.6%

  • Shepard.

    Votes: 32 19.3%
  • Total voters
    166
  • Poll closed .
clem84

clem84

Gold Member
Hawking Radiation said:
The detail they're going to pull out of this galaxy is going to be insane, the most distant ever seen. Personally can't wait to see the Webb ultra deep field.

GNz11.png
Click to expand...
What kind of thing could they see out there that would make them go "hmm... we better keep that to ourselves"? If they got back the picture of a planet that had many ships orbiting, would they tell us?
 
Coolwhhip

Coolwhhip

Neophyte
clem84 said:
What kind of thing could they see out there that would make them go "hmm... we better keep that to ourselves"? If they got back the picture of a planet that had many ships orbiting, would they tell us?
Click to expand...

Ehh dont think it works like that. Even the Hubble sees the Webb telescope as 1 point of light and its damn close. So I doubt they can literally see planets with Webb.
 
Last edited:
PuppetMaster

PuppetMaster

Member
Coolwhhip said:
Ehh dont think it works like that. Even the Hubble sees the Webb as 1 point of light and its damn close. So I doubt they can literally see planets with Webb.
Click to expand...

Yes. We cannot see planets directly. We are not even close to that level of telescope.

But when a planet passes over a star, think of it as a tiny eclipse. Even if it is a tiny tiny reduction in the light from the star, it is detectable.

And not only is it detectable, the light will be slightly changed in its spectrum. Which lets us predict what type of chemicals the planet that eclipsed it is made of.

But basically what we will see is stars. Very very dim stars.

You will be disappointed if you were expecting to see aliens. To a normal person the pictures will just look like normal stars. You need to use spectroscopy to break down the light to infer plants. Or infer there are organics on the planet etc.
 
Last edited:
Hawking Radiation

Hawking Radiation

Member
clem84 said:
What kind of thing could they see out there that would make them go "hmm... we better keep that to ourselves"? If they got back the picture of a planet that had many ships orbiting, would they tell us?
Click to expand...
Yeah you're not getting that kind of detail from Webb but it will be able to detect and measure the atmospheric conditions on exoplanets and that's the best we can hope for in terms of the search for life.

If it detects the same atmospheric conditions that occurs here on earth on a distant exoplanet then it is basically an indirect confirmation of alien life and would warrant a closer look.
For me this is what's most exciting regarding Webb. The ability to answer the question of all questions. Are we alone?

KingGhidorah said:
whats the cost?!?!? 10 billion? 20???

....anything less than finding aliens is a failure
Click to expand...
Webb has the ability to, though indirectly but it will be able to detect biosignatures in exoplanets but most importantly we need to know where to look. You have to be realistic here. The universe is unimaginably huge.
 
Last edited:
MastaKiiLA

MastaKiiLA

Member
Coolwhhip said:
Ehh dont think it works like that. Even the Hubble sees the Webb telescope as 1 point of light and its damn close. So I doubt they can literally see planets with Webb.
Click to expand...
Webb will be able to visualize the same exoplanets that Hubble can. There's not much detail, it's just a point of light orbiting a star, usually. And the systems where we can see the ecliptic plane top-down/bottom-up are not that common. It requires chance alignment really. But Hubble and others have directly-imaged exoplanets before. Just that they're all either hot Jupiters or borderline brown dwarfs.
 
G-Bus

G-Bus

Banned
Kev Kev said:
ya know im not even really that into this stuff, not like some of you, at least. but this was super interesting and educational and i have to recommend it to anyone else who is curious, even if youre a dodo like me lol. thanks for sharing!
Click to expand...

No problem! Was quite happy to have stumbled upon it myself

Really puts things into perspective and they present it in a really easy to understand way.
E-Cat said:
What are the chances that the telescope gets hit by a meteoroid or something like that?
Click to expand...

I think one thing a lot of people have a hard time wrapping there minds around is how absolutely big and empty space truly is.

I think they said they expect micro meteors in some capacity to hit the telescope, but nothing in the way I'm sure your thinking.

Not to say a tiny spec traveling at 10/km a second isn't something to worry about.

Google:

"The Risks of Orbital Debris Averaging speeds of 10 km/s (22,000 mph), a 1 centimeter paint fleck is capable of inflicting the same damage as a 550 pound object traveling 60 miles per hour on earth. A 10 centimeter projectile would be comparable to 7 kilograms of TNT."
 
greyshark

greyshark

Member
www.nasa.gov

How Hardy Is Webb? A Q&A About the Toughness of NASA’s Webb Telescope - NASA

Just how resilient does a space telescope have to be to survive both Earth’s environment and the frigid, airless environment of space? Paul Geithner, the
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov

Q: Once Webb is in orbit, how susceptible will it be to micrometeoroid strikes? For example, what would happen if one of Webb’s primary mirror segments or the sunshield got struck?



Paul: Although space is mostly empty, there is some debris. In the inner Solar System where Webb will orbit, we have a good understanding of what the population of meteoroids is like from years of observations and research. It’s mostly dust and very small particles, with the majority being sparsely distributed and tinier than grains of sand. There are some pebbles, rocks, and boulders, but they are very sparse and very rare. At Webb’s orbit at L2, the debris is all natural and the environment is not as hazardous as it is much closer to Earth, where there is a fair amount of human-generated “space junk.”



We know Webb will get struck by micrometeoroids during its lifetime, and we have taken that into account in its design and construction. We sized Webb’s main mirror so that even after years of little impacts it will still have the reflective surface area and quality necessary to do the science. We even did tests on the ground that emulated micrometeoroid impacts to demonstrate what will happen to the mirrors in space.



Similarly, part of the reason the sunshield has five layers is so it can tolerate more than the number of expected small holes, and even some tears, and still work as it should.

Also, almost all of Webb’s sensitive components (besides the mirrors and sunshield) are protected behind “micrometeoroid armor.” When micrometeoroids do strike, most are so small that they totally disintegrate upon impact, even when they hit something thin like thermal blankets or a sunshield membrane. Critical wires and electronics are shielded behind even more robust metal “armor” or inside metal boxes.
Click to expand...

They expect Webb to get hit by micrometeorites and have designed it to take some damage and continue to function.
 
Hawking Radiation

Hawking Radiation

Member
E-Cat

E-Cat

Member
G-Bus said:
No problem! Was quite happy to have stumbled upon it myself

Really puts things into perspective and they present it in a really easy to understand way.


I think one thing a lot of people have a hard time wrapping there minds around is how absolutely big and empty space truly is.

I think they said they expect micro meteors in some capacity to hit the telescope, but nothing in the way I'm sure your thinking.

Not to say a tiny spec traveling at 10/km a second isn't something to worry about.

Google:

"The Risks of Orbital Debris Averaging speeds of 10 km/s (22,000 mph), a 1 centimeter paint fleck is capable of inflicting the same damage as a 550 pound object traveling 60 miles per hour on earth. A 10 centimeter projectile would be comparable to 7 kilograms of TNT."
Click to expand...
Actually, I *was* thinking about micrometeoroids since the mirror is such a delicate instrument and the debris travel at such high speeds.
 
Last edited:
Buggy Loop

Buggy Loop

Member
KingGhidorah said:
whats the cost?!?!? 10 billion? 20???

....anything less than finding aliens is a failure
Click to expand...

10 billion over 30 years. It’s nothing. It actually indicates how underfunded NASA is. This is the thing I don’t understand about Americans, with the snap of a finger you can give healthcare, pay off student debts and reinvest in your schools. You pay so many fucking taxes for military, you’re being milked for killing machines with spendings that are higher than the combined next 11 countries’ highest military budgets.

JWST is a drop in the ocean..
 
Last edited:
Sakura

Sakura

Member
MastaKiiLA said:
Webb will be able to visualize the same exoplanets that Hubble can. There's not much detail, it's just a point of light orbiting a star, usually. And the systems where we can see the ecliptic plane top-down/bottom-up are not that common. It requires chance alignment really. But Hubble and others have directly-imaged exoplanets before. Just that they're all either hot Jupiters or borderline brown dwarfs.
Click to expand...
I remember reading somewhere that if the telescope was somewhere else in the galaxy looking at our solar system, it wouldn't even be able to see the Earth because of the proximity to the sun and brightness.
Probably a ton of planets out there that we just can't see.
 
RJMacready73

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Sakura said:
I remember reading somewhere that if the telescope was somewhere else in the galaxy looking at our solar system, it wouldn't even be able to see the Earth because of the proximity to the sun and brightness.
Probably a ton of planets out there that we just can't see.
Click to expand...
A ton? There's estimates in the billions upon billions, hell the amount of planets within a stars habitual zone are probably in the billions based on what we've simply observed so far, the numbers are simply incomprehensible to us land monkeys, once we've confirmed bio signatures in exo planet atmospheres itll be game over, job done... Yup life is everywhere in the universe but the distance between stars means we'll never get to fuck with those Navi
 
RJMacready73

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
Buggy Loop said:
10 billion over 30 years. It’s nothing. It actually indicates how underfunded NASA is. This is the thing I don’t understand about Americans, with the snap of a finger you can give healthcare, pay off student debts and reinvest in your schools. You pay so many fucking taxes for military, you’re being milked for killing machines with spendings that are higher than the combined next 11 countries’ highest military budgets.

JWST is a drop in the ocean..
Click to expand...
It's utterly insane the amounts of money poured into the military industrial complex compared to the amount of money poured into science, health and education... Y'know all those things that could actually make a fucking difference, imagine what NASA could achieve if they had even a fraction of the budget given to one branch of their military...
 
haxan7

haxan7

Banned
Buggy Loop said:
10 billion over 30 years. It’s nothing. It actually indicates how underfunded NASA is. This is the thing I don’t understand about Americans, with the snap of a finger you can give healthcare, pay off student debts and reinvest in your schools. You pay so many fucking taxes for military, you’re being milked for killing machines with spendings that are higher than the combined next 11 countries’ highest military budgets.

JWST is a drop in the ocean..
Click to expand...
Unfortunately this is a fantasy. But I don't want to derail the thread.
 
Buggy Loop

Buggy Loop

Member
Today’s the day for L2 orbit insertion!

I mean, should be easy enough compared to all the previous things, but you never know.
 
IDKFA

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Buggy Loop said:
Today’s the day for L2 orbit insertion!

I mean, should be easy enough compared to all the previous things, but you never know.
Click to expand...

Fingers crossed. At the time of writing, we just have a little over 2.5k miles to go.

jwst.nasa.gov

Where Is Webb? NASA/Webb

During Webb's launch, deployment and commissioning, 'WhereIsWebb' tracked Webb's 'flight' to L2 orbit, its state and progress during its deployment and commissioning process, and finally the release of its first images. This process is now complete. During this process, the page constantly...
jwst.nasa.gov
 
Rockondevil

Rockondevil

Member
Thaedolus said:
WTF kind of unit is “half the length of a paper clip?”

Give it to me in football fields NASA, goddammit, don’t make me get my abacus out
Click to expand...
Sadly it's for the Americans (I'm sure some of get it) who can't understand the metric system, though half an inch would've sufficed I'm sure.
 
ultrazilla

ultrazilla

Member
Portugeezer said:


With a communications glitch resolved, NASA and the European Space Agency have rescheduled the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on an Ariane 5 for Dec. 24.

While a formal announcement from NASA and ESA was still pending as of late Dec. 17, various sources, including the Space Telescope Science Institute, said that they had rescheduled the launch for Dec. 24 at 7:20 a.m. Eastern after the communications problem between the spacecraft and ground equipment delayed the launch. The agencies finally publicly confirmed the new launch date early Dec. 18 after encapsulation of JWST within the Ariane 5 payload fairing was complete.

spacenews.com

JWST launch rescheduled for Dec. 24

With a communications glitch resolved, NASA and the European Space Agency have rescheduled the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on an Ariane 5 for Dec. 24.
spacenews.com spacenews.com



Been a long time coming, I swear I have been hearing about this telescope for about a decade as if it was only a few years away.

Now the time is finally here.
Click to expand...


edit
 
Last edited:
Rest

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.

Why Are there Holes in the James Webb Sunshield? - Smarter Every Day​




Here's some cool behind the scenes stuff on the sun sheild.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

James Webb Space Telescope: Jupiter
32
3K
E-Cat replied
After 20 Years, NASA completes the James Webb telescope. The most powerful ever!
3 4 5 6 7
345
48K
XMonkey replied
  • Locked
SpaceX Falcon 9 FT Launch of CRS-8. First Stage Ocean Landing Successful
2 3 4 5
248
31K
HellBlazer replied
  • Locked
Hubble Space telescope continues to impress
2 3 4
175
15K
GillianSeed79 replied
  • Locked
TIME Magazine's Top 50 inventions of 2009
2
89
8K
XiaNaphryz replied
Top Bottom