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James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

npr.org

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Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#11

Post by jamincan »

bestouff wrote: post #4

It's funny how the excellent job of the French Ariane launcher is nowhere to be seen in this (and others) article.

Shortly after launch there were quite a few articles talking about how well the launch went on the Ariane and how that allowed the mission to be extended to 20 years or so.

I'm not sure who it was anymore (possibly Scott Manley on youtube), but apparently ESA had been setting aside the components for the Ariane 5 that tested best to be used for the launch of JWST to lower the risk of failure and that might explain in part why it was able to launch it so precisely - it was not your average Joe's Ariane 5.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#13

Post by inamberclad »

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #3

I'm a little embarrassed to say this and I don't know exactly what I pictured in my head, but I had no idea these telescopes were so big[1]. I guess I never saw one pictured next to a human. I've only seen pictures of satellites being worked on so I expected something more human sized? It seems so stupid now, especially since earth telescopes are huge. [1] https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013500/a013522/JWST_v.…

The space shuttle blows my mind every time I see one. It's huge - the size of an airliner - and would glide back at Mach 25. It's a humbling level of accomplishment.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#14

Post by ainiriand »

'Science' writing at its worst -> the tennis-court sized telescope made its way into a parking spot that's about a million miles away from Earth.

It would be better to try to explain concepts in a succinct way and, if it is not possible, to provide links to get the full information about a more detailed description. Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#15

Post by Denvercoder9 »

ainiriand wrote: post #14

'Science' writing at its worst -> the tennis-court sized telescope made its way into a parking spot that's about a million miles away from Earth. It would be better to try to explain concepts in a succinct way and, if it is not possible, to provide links to get the full information about a more detailed description. Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles.

> Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles.

It's not if you're writing for an American audience that's more familar with imperial units.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#16

Post by ainiriand »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #15
ainiriand wrote: post #14

'Science' writing at its worst -> the tennis-court sized telescope made its way into a parking spot that's about a million miles away from Earth. It would be better to try to explain concepts in a succinct way and, if it is not possible, to provide links to get the full information about a more detailed description. Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles.

> Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles. It's not if you're writing for an American audience that's more familar with imperial units.

Then you can use football fields as measurement unit, following that argument. Or bananas.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#18

Post by mabbo »

EMM_386 wrote: post #9

This was an absurdly teeth-clenching deployment. And no back-up, even if the Ariane launch failed. No back-up. Congrats to everyone across the board for getting this amazing telescope right where it needs to be. Now all we need is the mirror alignment and we're in for some seriously incredible science.

Mirror alignment was done in the days leading up to insertion, wasn't it?

Afaik, all that's left is testing and cooling- the cold side is still around 63K and needs to get down to 50K (-223C).

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#19

Post by Denvercoder9 »

ainiriand wrote: post #16
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also it is a good idea to use metric units for science articles. It's not if you're writing for an American audience that's more familar with imperial units.

Then you can use football fields as measurement unit, following that argument. Or bananas.

There's a reason things like football fields are commonly used as measurements in science communication: it actually helps the average person to get a sense of scale.

Re: James Webb telescope reaches its final destination in space, million miles away

#20

Post by ragebol »

slim wrote: post #17
bestouff wrote: post #4

It's funny how the excellent job of the French Ariane launcher is nowhere to be seen in this (and others) article.

Ariane 5 was cool in 1995

And now too, since it ~doubled the science/dollar output of the telescope by doubling the lifetime. I think that's cool
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