18 Apr 2024, 22:53 [ UTC - 5; DST ]
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Username Protected
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 20 Dec 2021, 18:05 |
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Joined: 08/14/13 Posts: 6072 Post Likes: +4650
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Username Protected wrote: The 24th now for launch? Do you have a time, Doug? James Webb* 0720 EST
Last edited on 20 Dec 2021, 18:07, edited 1 time in total.
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Username Protected
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 20 Dec 2021, 19:30 |
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Joined: 12/03/14 Posts: 19252 Post Likes: +23622 Company: Ciholas, Inc Location: KEHR
Aircraft: C560V
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The JWST is the most important single thing mankind has done this century. I sure hope it works.
In ancient times, people thought the sky was just above the Earth.
In middle ages, people thought everything revolved around the Earth.
Around 1600, Galileo said the Earth revolved around the sun and Jupiter had moons.
As recently as 1920, only 100 years ago, astronomers thought the Milky Way galaxy contained all the stars in the universe.
In 1930, it became wildly accepted that there are billions of other galaxies, a tremendous increase in the perceived size of the universe.
Hubble has allowed us to know the universe is far bigger and older, now about 14 billion years old.
The JWST is about 100 times the power of Hubble. When they turn it on and look, do you expect them to find nothing past what Hubble sees? Of course not. I expect we will again be faced with a sudden and dramatic change in perspective as we find things are much larger than we ever imagined. I don't know what we will find, but I guarantee it will change our fundamental understanding of the universe.
We should have 10 such telescopes in space, why spend all that design effort and build just one? There is so much to look at, and it would provide redundancy.
Mike C.
_________________ Email mikec (at) ciholas.com
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Username Protected
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 20 Dec 2021, 19:48 |
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Joined: 12/25/10 Posts: 5766 Post Likes: +3466 Company: Occasionally Pleasant Location: Bourland Field 50F Cresson, TX
Aircraft: H35, C-172
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Username Protected wrote: There's a lot hanging on this launch. It's been something like twenty years in the making, nine billion dollars, and the science that it is capable of is incredible. I'm very nervous.
There have been developmental issues with it, readiness issues, stacking issues... plus the thing folds up like a piece of origami and has to unfold perfectly in order to work, and at Lagrange 2 it will be much too far away to service or help in any way if it isn't perfect. There are going to be a lot of people holding their breath.
Personally I'd feel a lot better if JPL had the contract for it, but here we are. My fingers are crossed hard. Didn't JPL miss a Mars landing by just a hair? Got off on the wrong foot. So to speak
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Username Protected
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 20 Dec 2021, 20:05 |
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Joined: 11/20/14 Posts: 6473 Post Likes: +4560
Aircraft: V35
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Considering all the satellites we’re launching lately that muck up the view from Earth, a great telescope up there with unobstructed views is ever more useful.
Looking at stars from earth is going to be about like looking across a busy highway at rush hour.
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 20 Dec 2021, 22:37 |
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Joined: 12/03/14 Posts: 19252 Post Likes: +23622 Company: Ciholas, Inc Location: KEHR
Aircraft: C560V
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Username Protected wrote: Looking at stars from earth is going to be about like looking across a busy highway at rush hour. You are greatly exaggerating. There are about 27,000 man made objects orbiting the Earth. Sounds like a lot, but there is a LOT of space between them. Each object has 7,500 square MILES of space around them (treating LEO as the surface of a sphere). That's an average spacing of 90 MILES between them. So space around the Earth is really still vastly empty, relatively speaking. It isn't like traffic on a busy highway. Mike C.
_________________ Email mikec (at) ciholas.com
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Username Protected
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 20 Dec 2021, 22:46 |
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Joined: 01/06/08 Posts: 4697 Post Likes: +2703
Aircraft: B55 P2
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The radio telescopes have a bigger problem. Their beams are a lot wider . Usually the satellite transmitters are away from astronomy bands - but if they aren't completely clean, it can really mess things up. Username Protected wrote: Looking at stars from earth is going to be about like looking across a busy highway at rush hour. You are greatly exaggerating. There are about 27,000 man made objects orbiting the Earth. Sounds like a lot, but there is a LOT of space between them. Each object has 7,500 square MILES of space around them (treating LEO as the surface of a sphere). That's an average spacing of 90 MILES between them. So space around the Earth is really still vastly empty, relatively speaking. It isn't like traffic on a busy highway. Mike C.
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 21 Dec 2021, 08:01 |
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Joined: 02/14/08 Posts: 3160 Post Likes: +2660 Location: KGBR
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Fingers crossed and knock on wood. This is super exciting and inspiring!
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 21 Dec 2021, 09:12 |
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Joined: 11/25/11 Posts: 9168 Post Likes: +17162 Location: KGNF, Grenada, MS
Aircraft: Baron, 180,195,J-3
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Username Protected wrote: Fingers crossed and knock on wood. This is super exciting and inspiring! I am totally untrained in matters of astro and particle physics, but I have read most of the books written for the interested layman by the popular writers on the subject. This research is beyond exciting. We are on the cusp of understanding the very creation of matter and time. Together with the history of mankind being tracked by the study of the human genome and DNA, almost every concept that guided the advancement of civilization has been completely rewritten. What the intelligent ones of us know is, it is not magic. My curiosity is how this knowledge will direct the future of our species when 90% of the world's population still believes in magic. My thoughts are that a true vision of the future would be almost indigestible to the vast majority of people today. Though Hawking spoke a great truth when he said that physics is the new philosophy, I still use the word, philosophy, when engaging the subject of human existence and our future. If anyone knows of a site where such "philosophical" matters are intelligently discussed, I would appreciate your directing me here. Few of those minds exist on a pilot blog even if it were kept within the bounds of TOS. Jg
_________________ Waste no time with fools. They have nothing to lose.
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Post subject: Re: James Web Telescope Posted: 21 Dec 2021, 09:32 |
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Joined: 12/03/14 Posts: 19252 Post Likes: +23622 Company: Ciholas, Inc Location: KEHR
Aircraft: C560V
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Username Protected wrote: We are on the cusp of understanding the very creation of matter and time. That opinion has existed for centuries. Lord Kelvin once said "there is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement". That was in 1897. How wrong he was. In the time of Newton, it seemed like the mechanics of the universe were almost all explained. Then the speed of light was the same in all directions. In the time of Einstein, the theory of relativity seemed to explain space and time. Then quantum mechanics came about. Einstein tried the rest of his life to make the "theory of everything" and failed. Quantum mechanics makes extremely illogical predictions which have all come true. It is the most remarkable scientific theory ever proposed, violating common sense in numerous ways. In modern times, we can't explain the expanding of the universe. Then we created dark matter and dark energy to fill that void of understanding. Matter was once molecules, then atoms, then quarks, then leptons, now bosons and even the optimistically named "standard model" appears to have structure beyond bosons. There is a theory that if humans ever figure out how the universe works, the laws of the universe will be instantly replaced with a far more complex and weird new set of laws. There is another theory that this has already happened multiple times. In short, we actually don't really know how the universe works. Every time we move the frontier of knowledge, there is an ever stranger and more complex set of unknowns we have to figure out. The JWST will look in places we have never seen before. It is extremely unlikely that will produce results consistent with our current state of knowledge. Mankind's perspective on ourselves and the universe is about to change. Mike C.
_________________ Email mikec (at) ciholas.com
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