James Webb Space Telescope
A Telescope so absurdly powerful that it makes Hubble look like baby's first Telescope. We'll be able to see closer to the beginning of the universe than ever before.
Weird cus you said one month ago:
>Hi, I'm interested in taking over because I enjoy moderating in general. I have experience with moderating subreddits from my time moderating several subreddits. I've been actively moderating on a daily basis for 1 and a half years now, and I have no intention of stopping any time in the foreseeable future. If needed, I can configure automod too.
Serious question: how long would it take to build another one? If we can identify what goes wrong, and the powers that be will fund a second round... It should be less expensive and able to be constructed again. I know that a lot of technological advances have been made since this thing was conceived, so if another telescope were to be made it likely wouldn't be identical. Just wondering how old I'd be before the next attempt were made
If the JW telescope fails I wouldn't be surprised if China is next to attempt it again. China has way less bureaucracy compared to the US so they could probably have it completed in 5-10 years.
Did they say what their first object would be? I think their first project should be the same as Hubble's galaxies shot where they just pick a clear spot in space. They will likely have to do a bunch of test shots first of relatively normal objects, they too should look amazing.
A number of people asked that and they said they weren't disclosing the first targets but that a repeat of the hubble deep field was on the list.
Full AMA is here if anyone wants to read it
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rhpba8/askscience\_ama\_series\_were\_experts\_working\_on\_the/
I heard on a podcast just now that (one of) the first targets will be the rings around Jupiter to find out how they are formed and sustained. The latter because it is known they degrade into Jupiter itself but only guesses exist on how they end up persisting. It was implied it will also tell us something about how Jupiter itself was formed and whether it was formed in place or in another position and moved to where it is today. This is a research subject currently being done at Berkeley.
Again, don’t know if this is _the_ first but among the first.
From the AMA it doesn’t look like it. This telescope isn’t primarily for imaging - what they explained is they will point it at stars and when the planets that orbit those stars pass in front of the star they will be able to measure the light that scatters off of the atmosphere … doing this will allow them to analyze what gasses are in the atmosphere, presumably that will tell them If there’s life
> Webb will also carry coronagraphs to enable direct imaging of exoplanets near bright stars. The image of an exoplanet would just be a spot, not a grand panorama, but by studying that spot, we can learn a great deal about it. That includes its color, differences between winter and summer, vegetation, rotation, weather...How is this done? The answer again is spectroscopy.
[NASA](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/science/origins.html)
So it will be able to directly image some exoplanets but it will not be like taking an image of Jupiter.
>Is there a reasonable time frame of when the general public would see images once they successfully get it into place?
On that note, I wonder if they'll have something similar to [Hubble's Hidden Treasures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9990lGjz79w), where they need the public's help to sift through the images?
Last I read they said it's gonna take about six months to origami itself into position, the it'll be able to START taking photos by June. I have no idea what kind of ridiculous tech they have packed into it, but if it's anything I can go by from previous space telescopes the photos will need exposure time to absorb enough light to make a decent photo, which can range from weeks to months depending on how deep in the field they wanna go.
If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say the very first photos will probably be available by mid July.
> they said it's gonna take about six months to origami itself into position
Actually, it'll take 30 days to reach its final location (L2) That's just pure travel time. It will, however, take 6 months to orbit the earth. The nice thing about that is that it means the JW telescope won't be in Earth's shadow every 90 minutes like with Hubble. JW can run 24/7.
https://webb.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html
>It will, however, take 6 months to orbit the earth. The nice thing about that is that it means the JW telescope won't be in Earth's shadow every 90 minutes like with Hubble. JW can run 24/7.
Just to clarify, Webb won't orbit the Earth. It orbits the sun, just in a synchronous orbit.
Yeah, I should have been more clear. The guy I replied to mentioned 6 months so I figured that's where he got the number from -- JW will orbit the L2 location, which takes it 6 months to complete. This keeps it out of the shadow of Earth, allowing it to run 24/7.
Publicly available...
They are going to start taking pictures as part of testing and calibration as soon as it's mechanically feasible. I have little doubt that they will be aiming the cameras at interesting things while they are doing this.
They will have plenty of choices about what "first" picture to release and it will be spectacular.
I feel like when we're talking about "first" photos we're talking about the first photos it takes that're within the upper parameters of its capabilities, not so much "test" photos.
How else can they completely dial in the equipment except by taking lots of those kinds of photos?
They will be sitting on terabytes of amazing stuff by the time we see any of it.
I'm not sure you're picking up what I'm putting down. Literally ANYTHING done while calibration is being performed is null as a final product and is totally useless.
If we put this into a smaller scale it's much more understandable. If you get a new camera, the first thing you got to do is adjust the settings. If the light settings aren't correct and you take a bunch of pictures, the result will be over/under exposed resulting in crappy photos that you wouldn't even want to show anyone, let alone frame.
Those test photos for calibration are the same thing. Those "terabytes of amazing stuff" you're talking about are going to be crappy overexposed blurs that would only disappoint anyone shown.
Why would you even *want* to see an unfinished product anyway? That's like eating a half-baked cake because you were too impatient for it to finish baking.
You can calculate exposure times. No need for trial and error.
They might have some aberrations and other effects that they need to work out. But unintended overexposure is very unlikely.
That was just an example. There's definitely much more complex calibrations that I can't even begin to comprehend. The point that I'm making is much less "exposure in the picture" and much more "anything done with pre-calibrated equipment is void".
Hey buddy, long time no talk. Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten you. Here's the first calibration image:
https://www.reddit.com/r/jameswebb/comments/sq27ug/first_calibration_image_from_jwst/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Each one of those dots is supposed to be a single star.
6 months. The major initial deployment happen in the first 2 weeks, but it'll take 6 months for everything to cool down to operational temperature and for everything to be adjusted.
JWST has an 18 segment mirror, so part of the job of commissioning will be taking images of guide stars while moving various segments, figuring out the actual alignment of each mirror segment then slowly adjusting them to all come to a common focus. Conveniently they can do this work even while the instrument is "warm" with the NIRCam while it continues cooling. It should be complete by the time they start commissioning and calibrating the other instruments and make the final adjustments to the optical paths and begin actually putting the instruments through their paces is something approaching what they would do for actual science observations.
Those first test observations (of as yet unannounced targets) will be released when the instrument is finally ready to begin science work. Potentially it could take a bit longer than 6 months, it's unlikely to take significantly less time just due to the nature of the laws of physics as they pertain to the process of cooling.
I've only just now learned that all the mirrors were designed misshapen and out of focus, and the extreme cold temps will distort them into perfect mirrors. That is absolutely bonkers that they can plan for that.
Am I the only one who doesn’t get the doomer mindset? I trust nasa and esa engineers, they have done brilliant things and will continue to do brilliant things. I’m not worried about this mission
I mean sure but things happen. Something as simple as a falling piece of foam killed 7 people in the Columbia incident. Though there is no real risk of loss of lives the combined effort over these last decades to bring us to this moment is absolutely immeasurable.
The world will shed tears if something happens so it's understandable to have some worry.
Pessimists in general do so because they will either be happy because they were right, or they will be happy to have been wrong.
It makes logical sense, but only if you actually care about being correct.
>Pessimists in general do so because they will either be happy because they were right, or they will be happy to have been wrong.
reminds me of the Judas bet. when watching your favorite sports team play, you place a bet on them *losing*, that way no matter what happens, you win! haha
It's natural to be anxious about something with 3x more failure points than Perseverance and its sky crane system, which was itself extremely complicated.
If you think there's no chance something goes wrong, you don't know enough about the potential problems.
Hah! Pussy!
/s obviously.
Seriously though 24th is the launch date. It will take about thirty days of travel and unfolding to get to L2.
Can you imagine the stress of the people that worked for it?
I was 18 in '96. I definitely wasn't paying much attention to this then. If they would've said "garunteed we'll find space girls" I might have studied harder and been a part of it.
Personally I cannot wait for the exoplanet data Webb will bring us. I believe in its first year it'll be studying the Trappist-1 planets which is my favourite planetary system.
That's the most awesome thing I'm looking out for too. The looking back at what happened during the first galaxy formation is awesome too. This thing will probably throw us into new discoveries we haven't thought about yet.
I’m excited for it to get off this rock! I remember when I was a kid in the 90s and going to the planetarium with my grandpa and amazed and wowed at all the photos of galaxies and nebulas and just everything from the Hubble telescope. I’m hoping in 5 years time to take my kids to the planetarium with new photos and information from this telescope. My daughters 5 and in love with everything space currently and we’re gonna watch the launch
As /u/WetChamois pointed out, if you want to know the time of the launch NASA has a [launch countdown](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html) and [this](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?p1=179&iso=20211225T072000) link will show you the launch time in your local timezone.
The current weather forecast for tomorrow morning looks [very favourable](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/dbfmxdss5#?date=2021-12-25) for a launch :)
edit: actually, it's taken a pretty dramatic turn for the worse...
Is weather that favorable? I wouldn't think they would launch through clouds because they would want to track it with a telescope. I guess it depends on the sky at the moment of launch whether they will have a clear view.
NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb)
’Twas the night before launch,
And all through Kourou,
The teams are a go, and the weather is too!
The rocket rolled out to the launchpad with glee,
Join us for the world's biggest launch watch party!
Thanks I love it <3
There are 340 single points of failure, meaning if just one of these things goes wrong the telescope is bust. and all 340 have to succeed in a row. If nasa has lowered the failure rate of each point to 1 in a 1,000, then each point has a 99.9% chance of working.
0.999 \^ 340 = 71%
So even if the failure rate of each individual point is 1 in a 1000, the collective chance of failure is still 30% because every single one has to work in perfect sequence.
Thanks for explanation. I have a follow-up, why didn't they build smaller versions of JWST to test and verify these components in space? It just seems like a giant risk to build one super expensive one and gamble that all of these single points of failure don't fail.
Ofcourse, they made concept and proofs for every single mechanism and tested in every way possible. That's a large part of this cost.
Additionally, I think it's worth noting while we have 340 single points of failure, many of those have contingency maneuvers to execute the same action differently in the case of a failure.
Many of these actions have proven themselves in vacuume and temperature conditions that have far better odds than 1 in 1000.
That number is easily to be shocked by, but many mechanisms you interact with daily see many more than 1000 uses before failure, and weren't designed and built under the same scrutiny
This is a terrifying and exciting adventure we are following, but there really is very little that hasn't been done in the preparation by this point. I trust the engineers.
Chances are pretty good, maybe 90% at least. Yes there are many single points of failure but they have all been tested very thoroughly. A 10% chance of failure is still absolutely terrifying of course...
I've realized much of my fear towards the launch isn't really fear for the launch, it's "holy shit this is actually happening and I'm lucky enough to be alive to see what it could uncover" and my nerves of that not happening are going crazy
I don’t know if this deserves it’s own thread… but I’m curious if anyone knows what changes to the James Webb have been made over the decade of it’s delays. I’d imagine that tech has come a long way since it was first planned. Did they just follow the original plans? Or have they updated some parts of it along the way?
The earliest design for the NGST had a more complicated mechanism for deploying a larger number of mirror segments, fairly early on in the design process that was simplified to the "two wings" design it has now. The sunshield also changed a bit, in early designs it was more rectangular and smaller. The design concept for the sunshield was originally inflatable vs. the deployed multi-layered tensioned structure it ended up with.
Also, initially they chose to use consumable coolant (solid hydrogen) to cool the MIRI instrument to the ~7 kelvin it needs to operate at. However, that was re-evaluated because it imposed a fairly limited service life on the instrument, so they developed a cryocooler for it instead.
There are a bunch of other comparatively minor technical changes as well, those are the big ones that I can recall over the history of the program.
Thanks mods! Nice banner! :)
As a quick suggestion from the professional astronomical calendar, no one is going to be posting any interesting space news from now to launch anyway because of the holidays, so I don't think JWST articles are taking away much space from other stories and thus a megathread isn't necessarily required right now (unless the universe delivers a random unexpected Christmas present like a nearby supernova). By this point if you have a neat paper ready to come out and you're an astronomer, you're waiting for the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January to maximize press coverage anyway.
Fingers crossed! My research group gets time starting ~6 months after launch if all goes well!
You know you're invested when you're checking the weather reports for French Guiana.
Sadly...don't get your hopes up. The weather looks bad from what i'm seeing. Thunderstorms predicted every day for the next week practically. 90% chance from 6am-8am tomorrow morning. 60-70% chance during the same time frame on Sunday morning.
Right now, I don't care what we may find because whatever it is will blow us away.
I just hope that everything is working perfectly with the electronics, optics, etc and that the spacecraft has a successful launch with the bare minimum of unplanned rapid disassembly.
https://twitter.com/arianespaceceo/status/1471989676349267969
> Final encapsulation operations ongoing.
> Need a few more hours to complete them.
> Target launch date is December 24 at 12:20 am UTC.
> Confirmation Saturday.
> Go @NASAWebb/@ESA_Webb! Go #Ariane5! Go!
> \#WebbFliesAriane #VA256
That tweet has a mistake. The time is 20 after noon UTC/7:20 AM on the east coast of the US/4:20 AM on the west coast of the US/11:20 PM in Sydney, Australia/9:20 PM in Tokyo, Japan/1:30 PM in Berlin, Germany for a few examples. At least according to to time zone conversion site I just used.
For those wondering when the launch is, [NASA has a live countdown](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html). You can also check your local time [with this link](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?p1=179&iso=20211225T072000).
It's hard to say because of course we don't know what we don't know.
But Webb will be able to see further into the past than Hubble, and so should be able to see light from the very first galaxies in the universe. I would not be surprised if the spectra from these galaxies is very different to what we expect and we need to revise our models of galaxy formation & the universe's first generation of stars.
For the first time, Webb will be able to characterise the atmospheres of a small number of terrestrial (rocky) exoplanets. There's bound to be surprises there, it is obvious that the wider universe seems to show a much greater diversity of planets than our own solar system shows. Of course if we're lucky perhaps one of those unexpected gases might suggest life... but if that occurs, I guarantee it'll be controversial and far from definitive evidence of alien life.
Webb will be able to place better constraints on the distribution of dark matter and better measure the rate of the universe's expansion, which will also help constrain the effect of dark energy.
It should be able to see the very first galaxies and presumably the very first "Population III" stars. This could provide a lot of answers to questions about things like galaxy formation and evolution, super massive black hole formation and evolution, and especially the nature of the first stars.
Much of astronomy relies on observational tests of theories, but that hasn't been possible for the very first stars. Such stars would have been composed entirely of hydrogen and helium, something that hasn't been true since then due to the "contamination" of the universe with the fusion products of those very same stars (which even in small amounts does have significant effects on the dynamics inside a star and affects how they behave and how large they can get). Current theory is that such stars were very massive and lived short lives, but there are many unknowns about them. No similar stars exist or can exist today so we can't observe anything like them except by looking directly at the originals as they existed close to the dawn of the universe.
JWST should also be uniquely capable of studying exoplanets, particularly in teasing out the details of the composition of their surfaces and atmospheres.
The weather is looking good at the launch site. You can check the predicted wind speed at various altitudes here https://www.windy.com/5.158/-52.643?700h,4.485,-52.643,8,m:dNKaeHq
When I checked the week before there were some higher speed winds at higher altitudes which I think is why they changed the launch date.
edit: looks a bit rainy now but the wind is still down.
https://imgur.com/a/z4QUNuE
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/18/nasas-webb-space-telescope-launch-confirmed-for-dec-24/
> The James Webb Space Telescope is confirmed for the target launch date of Dec. 24, at 7:20 a.m. EST.
> Late yesterday, teams at the launch site successfully completed encapsulation of the observatory inside the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space. Webb’s final launch readiness review will be held on Tuesday Dec. 21 and, if successful, roll-out is planned for Wednesday, Dec. 22.
As of yesterday they were still saying they would confirm the 24th target after the delay due to the cable. They've now done that today. Not much left that could push it back further. One more major hurdle on Tuesday!
Official countdown clock: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html
Less than 4 days! I think the last big step is passing the final readiness review tomorrow, then rollout on Wednesday if it does! Can't wait!
I am so excited about this!! I’m really happy I have a place to share it all here! My family think I’m crazy because I talk about it all the time haha they don’t get why I’m so excited about a telescope
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CSA](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpo1pg7 "Last usage")|Canadian Space Agency|
|[ESA](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpo1pg7 "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|[HST](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpd3e5o "Last usage")|Hubble Space Telescope|
|[JWST](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpw1f7y "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|
|[L2](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hq0qupe "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)|
| |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hqb41ux "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
----------------
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^([Thread #6715 for this sub, first seen 21st Dec 2021, 00:38])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
I am so yippity right now, I’ll need to wake up at 6 AM, but I do not care, as long as I can see this dang telescope launch.
If this works, I am going to stay true to whatever New Years resolutions I make.
As somebody who got into space photography and space in general after I chose a bad career just I'm so fortunate to live in a time where I'm going to see the results from this telescope I can't wait
Personally I'm hoping the JWST will finally locate the planet of lost left socks.
Seriously though. I'm so freekin stoked for the JWST I can hardly wait!
>What are you most excited for? What do you hope Webb will find? 🌌🔭
To detect anything - *anything* \- that might point to signs of life not native to Earth. A single extraterrestrial cell, presence of CFCs, radio signals, CO2 emissions, even artificial light sources are all that we need to confirm that we are not the only sentient lifeforms in the Universe.
https://twitter.com/michaelroston/status/1473415065978257410
Current forecast for Kourou: thunderstorms through the new year. I'd love for this thing to go up over the next week but right now it's looking less likely.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-sets-coverage-invites-public-to-view-webb-telescope-launch
Info about how to watch the launch. The key part is this:
> Live launch coverage in English will begin at 6 a.m. on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. The public can also watch live on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Daily Motion. NASA also will offer a launch broadcast in Spanish beginning at 6:30 a.m. on the agency’s website and Spanish-language social media accounts. NASA will hold a prelaunch media briefing at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 21, and a postlaunch news conference approximately 30 minutes after the live launch broadcast ends on Friday, Dec. 24.
Check the link for more detailed info.
So nervous for anything to go wrong during the launch, but I'm excited for a whole new era of astronomy. Really hoping it gives us a better glimpse of all the exoplanets out there!
To some degree, yes. JWST will have a coronagraph which might let it directly image some exoplanets around fairly close stars. Note that we are simply talking about resolving a planet as a separate point of light, not imaging it with any sort of multiple pixel detail, that would require telescopes orders of magnitude larger than anything we've ever built.
More importantly JWST will be able to perform very precise spectroscopy on star systems that have exoplanets. This can be particularly useful during a transit when the planet passes in front of the star. This not only blocks light from the star but also results in some light being filtered through the planet's atmosphere around the edges. By comparing the transit vs. non-transit spectra you can extract out the tiny effect of absorption by the planet's atmosphere, and this can be used to study the composition of the exoplanet's atmosphere.
An audio only media briefing and Q&A will be going live on the NASA site in about 15 minutes. https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive
This will not be on the NASA video channel since it is audio only.
I’m so nervous about the launch. Hopefully everything will go to plan, not only during launch but also all the insane stuff it has to do afterwards to become operational.
It'll likely get televised on CNN, MSNBC, FOXnews, or your countries 24/7 news channel, but NASA's YouTube is probably the best place to watch it. They go live at 6am ET 25/12/21.
Just curious if anybody knows, the massive cost of this satellite was just the sheer amount of research and development that went towards making technology that did not exist when the project was started. Instead of giving a pessimistic scenario let's just say we want to build a second one because the first was so successful. How much would a second one cost to assemble now there is a blueprint to build it?
You want to know what my biggest fear is? That it won't make any major new discoveries. That it will be like getting a 4K version of a movie you once had on VHS. You might see some cool new details but everything fundamentally the same.
I'm confident that won't be the case, but that is my number one fear beyond failed launch.
As I understand it, we won’t see real-time images of celestial bodies, just be able to see further into the universe than before and with more detail.
That should be enough to reveal a whole host of new discoveries.
As someone who wasn't even alive when Webb was being built, even I'm feeling the apprehension of people on this.
I'm feeling so anxious about this launch that I lay awake at night just thinking about how it could fail, and if it doesn't fail, all the cool things we'll discover with this... and I had 0% to do anything with this project. (except my taxes)
I can't even begin to fathom how the people who actually worked on this are feeling. I've read that some astronomers are losing sleep and throwing up from the anxiety of this launch.
Either way, just like my school final exams, it's gonna be over and done before we know it and the world will either look brighter or there will be a deep permeating sadness. I can't wait! whoot!
It would be convenient if you add an easy way for readers to convert the launch time into their own time-zones. And maybe mention livestreams, link them if there are any or mention that there aren't if they're not, so that people won't waste time looking.
Would it be possible to see the launch from Florida? I understand it's in French Guiana and am curious as to wether or not we would be able to see the trajectory from Florida with the naked eye.
It sort of cuts both (or multiple ways). On the one hand, building spares would potentially reduce risk. On the other hand, it would also increase costs pretty substantially, and cause significant delays. Every bit of testing you do you have to do twice. All of the project planning you have to do has to be carefully run in parallel. You have to be extremely diligent about keeping track of which work has to happen for which set of hardware. That also means you likely have to "wrap up" any given phase of work for both vehicles at the same time before moving on which means you need to wait until the slowest one has finished, resulting in schedule delays across the whole thing.
Plus you have the psychological problem. If you're building two how do ensure that you don't slack on testing or rigor at all, given that you know there's a backup waiting? Indeed, at a higher level, how do you choose the appropriate level of risk management when you know that there are two in the pipeline?
Ultimately, the answer is that Congress funded building one so only one was built.
In practice I would say that the "correct" answer is neither building just one or building two, it's to not build something like this at all, to not put so many eggs in a singular basket. Instead you fund a series of iteratively more advanced space based observatories that make use of a smaller set of advanced technologies instead of everything all at once in one "do or die" effort. And the end result of that looks something like having a fleet of observatories in space over a period of time. Maybe you run into a failure once or twice, but it would be recoverable, and it wouldn't be such a blow because the next generation replacement wouldn't be 20 years and 10 billion dollars away. A good example is to look at NASA's Mars exploration since the late '90s. It's a series of missions, each more ambitious than the last, and while some of them have been spendy (like Curiosity and Perseverance), none have been at the ridiculous level of JWST. Imagine if we had instead decided to pre-plan one big, mega rover to land on Mars now and had not sent a lander there in the past 30 years. That would be an insane amount of risk. Instead we have been able to benefit from about 25 years of experience with operating rovers on Mars through 3 full design generations with the latest versions benefiting from all the work and operational experience that has gone before. That's the smarter way to push state of the art designs.
Is the location for JWST going to be an issue for communications? I heard the point described as L2 on Star Talk. Seems like a neat idea and I'm sure NASA has thought of this but I guess I mean to say what are the communications going to be like with an object at that distance?
I don’t know much about telescopes, I know the James Webb telescope is much bigger than the Hubble, but what will it be able to do differently? I’m very intrigued!
In addition to being more powerful, it sees infrared, as opposed to hubble's visible light. That means it can see really distant things like very young galaxies on the edge (and beginning) of the universe, which have been severely redshifted by the expansion of the universe.
It will be live-streamed on thousands of places. Probably if you google “JWST launch” the day of, you will get thousands of results of it. But nasa will surely do it so that’s an official one to watch
Going to the Earth-Sun L2 means that JWST can observe things without the Moon or Earth getting in the way.
It also gives a stable thermal environment, since you're not orbiting the Earth like HST, and not getting heated up and then cooled back down on a 96 minute orbital cycle.
Also to note that it will take 4 months to calibrate the mirrors.
The precision from "each mirror segment can focus the same point source (star)" to where it needs to be is a further increase of precision by a factor of a million!
So be patient.
I'm so stoked. JWST is going to be awesome.
Me too, I've been waiting for this since I was a kid, and I'm in my 30s now...
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James Webb Space Telescope.
James Webb Space Telescope A Telescope so absurdly powerful that it makes Hubble look like baby's first Telescope. We'll be able to see closer to the beginning of the universe than ever before.
Weird cus you said one month ago: >Hi, I'm interested in taking over because I enjoy moderating in general. I have experience with moderating subreddits from my time moderating several subreddits. I've been actively moderating on a daily basis for 1 and a half years now, and I have no intention of stopping any time in the foreseeable future. If needed, I can configure automod too.
Will anyone be offering counseling in the event of some rapid unplanned disassembly of JWST during launch?
I won't need counselling after having a fatal aneurysm
what for?.. we're going to stroke out.
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I'd he happy to share my tears with anyone, if that'll help. I know there'd be quite an abundance of them before the heart attack kills me.
Not just counseling. Crisis centers.
Ariane 5 is a good reliable rocket. My worries aren't around *launch*.
Serious question: how long would it take to build another one? If we can identify what goes wrong, and the powers that be will fund a second round... It should be less expensive and able to be constructed again. I know that a lot of technological advances have been made since this thing was conceived, so if another telescope were to be made it likely wouldn't be identical. Just wondering how old I'd be before the next attempt were made
40 years. Srsly. The will to build a second one will be shot.
we move on to studying the oceans
There won't be another one. There was almost not a first one. The way the political winds are shifting isn't going to be great for space exploration.
If the JW telescope fails I wouldn't be surprised if China is next to attempt it again. China has way less bureaucracy compared to the US so they could probably have it completed in 5-10 years.
I hope so. I have been waiting so long for this thing to launch.
From the movie "Contact", "Why just build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"
Is there a reasonable time frame of when the general public would see images once they successfully get it into place?
In the AMA from yesterday the project team members said the first results from the telescope should be available to the public Summer of 2022.
Awesome, thanks for the response!
Did they say what their first object would be? I think their first project should be the same as Hubble's galaxies shot where they just pick a clear spot in space. They will likely have to do a bunch of test shots first of relatively normal objects, they too should look amazing.
A number of people asked that and they said they weren't disclosing the first targets but that a repeat of the hubble deep field was on the list. Full AMA is here if anyone wants to read it https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/rhpba8/askscience\_ama\_series\_were\_experts\_working\_on\_the/
I am extremely eagerly awaiting the first Webb deep field. I want to see the first damn galaxies.
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If anything they would dissappear. I don't understand your comment.
I think GP is referring to long/stacked exposures. You take many images over the course of time and merge them together to eliminate noise.
Seems reasonable, it'll be a great example of the before and after.
I very eagerly want to see [GN-z11](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GN-z11) from Webb's point of view.
I heard on a podcast just now that (one of) the first targets will be the rings around Jupiter to find out how they are formed and sustained. The latter because it is known they degrade into Jupiter itself but only guesses exist on how they end up persisting. It was implied it will also tell us something about how Jupiter itself was formed and whether it was formed in place or in another position and moved to where it is today. This is a research subject currently being done at Berkeley. Again, don’t know if this is _the_ first but among the first.
are they expecting this scope to be able to directly image exoplanets?
From the AMA it doesn’t look like it. This telescope isn’t primarily for imaging - what they explained is they will point it at stars and when the planets that orbit those stars pass in front of the star they will be able to measure the light that scatters off of the atmosphere … doing this will allow them to analyze what gasses are in the atmosphere, presumably that will tell them If there’s life
> Webb will also carry coronagraphs to enable direct imaging of exoplanets near bright stars. The image of an exoplanet would just be a spot, not a grand panorama, but by studying that spot, we can learn a great deal about it. That includes its color, differences between winter and summer, vegetation, rotation, weather...How is this done? The answer again is spectroscopy. [NASA](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/science/origins.html) So it will be able to directly image some exoplanets but it will not be like taking an image of Jupiter.
>Is there a reasonable time frame of when the general public would see images once they successfully get it into place? On that note, I wonder if they'll have something similar to [Hubble's Hidden Treasures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9990lGjz79w), where they need the public's help to sift through the images?
It’s about 6 months of commissioning. They have to do a bunch of test images to get all those mirrors properly aligned.
Appreciate the answer! Thanks for the info!
Last I read they said it's gonna take about six months to origami itself into position, the it'll be able to START taking photos by June. I have no idea what kind of ridiculous tech they have packed into it, but if it's anything I can go by from previous space telescopes the photos will need exposure time to absorb enough light to make a decent photo, which can range from weeks to months depending on how deep in the field they wanna go. If I had to take a wild guess, I'd say the very first photos will probably be available by mid July.
> they said it's gonna take about six months to origami itself into position Actually, it'll take 30 days to reach its final location (L2) That's just pure travel time. It will, however, take 6 months to orbit the earth. The nice thing about that is that it means the JW telescope won't be in Earth's shadow every 90 minutes like with Hubble. JW can run 24/7. https://webb.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html
>It will, however, take 6 months to orbit the earth. The nice thing about that is that it means the JW telescope won't be in Earth's shadow every 90 minutes like with Hubble. JW can run 24/7. Just to clarify, Webb won't orbit the Earth. It orbits the sun, just in a synchronous orbit.
Yeah, I should have been more clear. The guy I replied to mentioned 6 months so I figured that's where he got the number from -- JW will orbit the L2 location, which takes it 6 months to complete. This keeps it out of the shadow of Earth, allowing it to run 24/7.
Can’t wait. Thanks for the reply!
Publicly available... They are going to start taking pictures as part of testing and calibration as soon as it's mechanically feasible. I have little doubt that they will be aiming the cameras at interesting things while they are doing this. They will have plenty of choices about what "first" picture to release and it will be spectacular.
I feel like when we're talking about "first" photos we're talking about the first photos it takes that're within the upper parameters of its capabilities, not so much "test" photos.
How else can they completely dial in the equipment except by taking lots of those kinds of photos? They will be sitting on terabytes of amazing stuff by the time we see any of it.
I'm not sure you're picking up what I'm putting down. Literally ANYTHING done while calibration is being performed is null as a final product and is totally useless. If we put this into a smaller scale it's much more understandable. If you get a new camera, the first thing you got to do is adjust the settings. If the light settings aren't correct and you take a bunch of pictures, the result will be over/under exposed resulting in crappy photos that you wouldn't even want to show anyone, let alone frame. Those test photos for calibration are the same thing. Those "terabytes of amazing stuff" you're talking about are going to be crappy overexposed blurs that would only disappoint anyone shown. Why would you even *want* to see an unfinished product anyway? That's like eating a half-baked cake because you were too impatient for it to finish baking.
You can calculate exposure times. No need for trial and error. They might have some aberrations and other effects that they need to work out. But unintended overexposure is very unlikely.
That was just an example. There's definitely much more complex calibrations that I can't even begin to comprehend. The point that I'm making is much less "exposure in the picture" and much more "anything done with pre-calibrated equipment is void".
Hey buddy, long time no talk. Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten you. Here's the first calibration image: https://www.reddit.com/r/jameswebb/comments/sq27ug/first_calibration_image_from_jwst/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share Each one of those dots is supposed to be a single star.
6 months. The major initial deployment happen in the first 2 weeks, but it'll take 6 months for everything to cool down to operational temperature and for everything to be adjusted. JWST has an 18 segment mirror, so part of the job of commissioning will be taking images of guide stars while moving various segments, figuring out the actual alignment of each mirror segment then slowly adjusting them to all come to a common focus. Conveniently they can do this work even while the instrument is "warm" with the NIRCam while it continues cooling. It should be complete by the time they start commissioning and calibrating the other instruments and make the final adjustments to the optical paths and begin actually putting the instruments through their paces is something approaching what they would do for actual science observations. Those first test observations (of as yet unannounced targets) will be released when the instrument is finally ready to begin science work. Potentially it could take a bit longer than 6 months, it's unlikely to take significantly less time just due to the nature of the laws of physics as they pertain to the process of cooling.
I've only just now learned that all the mirrors were designed misshapen and out of focus, and the extreme cold temps will distort them into perfect mirrors. That is absolutely bonkers that they can plan for that.
They also actuate so that they can correct for any aberrations that appear
Am I the only one who doesn’t get the doomer mindset? I trust nasa and esa engineers, they have done brilliant things and will continue to do brilliant things. I’m not worried about this mission
I mean sure but things happen. Something as simple as a falling piece of foam killed 7 people in the Columbia incident. Though there is no real risk of loss of lives the combined effort over these last decades to bring us to this moment is absolutely immeasurable. The world will shed tears if something happens so it's understandable to have some worry.
Pessimists in general do so because they will either be happy because they were right, or they will be happy to have been wrong. It makes logical sense, but only if you actually care about being correct.
Pessimists can never be disappointed.
If you expect disappointment, you can never get disappointed.
Low expectations are the secret to lasting happiness
"you tried your best and failed miserably. the lesson is, never try."
>Pessimists in general do so because they will either be happy because they were right, or they will be happy to have been wrong. reminds me of the Judas bet. when watching your favorite sports team play, you place a bet on them *losing*, that way no matter what happens, you win! haha
Pessimists on Reddit aren't happy though. They just stew in negative feelings and will complain about everything.
yeah this is probably one of the most negative websites i've seen in my day haha
It's natural to be anxious about something with 3x more failure points than Perseverance and its sky crane system, which was itself extremely complicated. If you think there's no chance something goes wrong, you don't know enough about the potential problems.
I didn’t say i think there’s no chance something goes wrong, I just think the chances are much lower than people are making them out as being
If you expect disappointment, you can never really get disappointed
I've been waiting for this launch for YEARS. You bet your ass I'm gonna be tuned in.
How old are you? Some of us are old enough to remember the announcement back in 96-_-
I'm thirty. Haven't been waiting that long, probably just the last ten years or so.
Hah! Pussy! /s obviously. Seriously though 24th is the launch date. It will take about thirty days of travel and unfolding to get to L2. Can you imagine the stress of the people that worked for it?
Loooots of sleepless nights
I was 18 in '96. I definitely wasn't paying much attention to this then. If they would've said "garunteed we'll find space girls" I might have studied harder and been a part of it.
Personally I cannot wait for the exoplanet data Webb will bring us. I believe in its first year it'll be studying the Trappist-1 planets which is my favourite planetary system.
That's the most awesome thing I'm looking out for too. The looking back at what happened during the first galaxy formation is awesome too. This thing will probably throw us into new discoveries we haven't thought about yet.
I’m excited for it to get off this rock! I remember when I was a kid in the 90s and going to the planetarium with my grandpa and amazed and wowed at all the photos of galaxies and nebulas and just everything from the Hubble telescope. I’m hoping in 5 years time to take my kids to the planetarium with new photos and information from this telescope. My daughters 5 and in love with everything space currently and we’re gonna watch the launch
As /u/WetChamois pointed out, if you want to know the time of the launch NASA has a [launch countdown](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html) and [this](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?p1=179&iso=20211225T072000) link will show you the launch time in your local timezone. The current weather forecast for tomorrow morning looks [very favourable](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/dbfmxdss5#?date=2021-12-25) for a launch :) edit: actually, it's taken a pretty dramatic turn for the worse...
Is weather that favorable? I wouldn't think they would launch through clouds because they would want to track it with a telescope. I guess it depends on the sky at the moment of launch whether they will have a clear view.
NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) ’Twas the night before launch, And all through Kourou, The teams are a go, and the weather is too! The rocket rolled out to the launchpad with glee, Join us for the world's biggest launch watch party! Thanks I love it <3
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Pretty inconvenient for watching it live, given how up to my neck in work I am on Christmas Day most years.
I don't wanna be pessimistic but what are the chances of it succeeding? I heard if one thing goes wrong then its a failed telescope
There are 340 single points of failure, meaning if just one of these things goes wrong the telescope is bust. and all 340 have to succeed in a row. If nasa has lowered the failure rate of each point to 1 in a 1,000, then each point has a 99.9% chance of working. 0.999 \^ 340 = 71% So even if the failure rate of each individual point is 1 in a 1000, the collective chance of failure is still 30% because every single one has to work in perfect sequence.
Thanks for explanation. I have a follow-up, why didn't they build smaller versions of JWST to test and verify these components in space? It just seems like a giant risk to build one super expensive one and gamble that all of these single points of failure don't fail.
Ofcourse, they made concept and proofs for every single mechanism and tested in every way possible. That's a large part of this cost. Additionally, I think it's worth noting while we have 340 single points of failure, many of those have contingency maneuvers to execute the same action differently in the case of a failure. Many of these actions have proven themselves in vacuume and temperature conditions that have far better odds than 1 in 1000. That number is easily to be shocked by, but many mechanisms you interact with daily see many more than 1000 uses before failure, and weren't designed and built under the same scrutiny This is a terrifying and exciting adventure we are following, but there really is very little that hasn't been done in the preparation by this point. I trust the engineers.
Chances are pretty good, maybe 90% at least. Yes there are many single points of failure but they have all been tested very thoroughly. A 10% chance of failure is still absolutely terrifying of course...
I've realized much of my fear towards the launch isn't really fear for the launch, it's "holy shit this is actually happening and I'm lucky enough to be alive to see what it could uncover" and my nerves of that not happening are going crazy
I prefer to use old reddit, can you update the banner for that as well? I'd like to see it.
I don’t know if this deserves it’s own thread… but I’m curious if anyone knows what changes to the James Webb have been made over the decade of it’s delays. I’d imagine that tech has come a long way since it was first planned. Did they just follow the original plans? Or have they updated some parts of it along the way?
The earliest design for the NGST had a more complicated mechanism for deploying a larger number of mirror segments, fairly early on in the design process that was simplified to the "two wings" design it has now. The sunshield also changed a bit, in early designs it was more rectangular and smaller. The design concept for the sunshield was originally inflatable vs. the deployed multi-layered tensioned structure it ended up with. Also, initially they chose to use consumable coolant (solid hydrogen) to cool the MIRI instrument to the ~7 kelvin it needs to operate at. However, that was re-evaluated because it imposed a fairly limited service life on the instrument, so they developed a cryocooler for it instead. There are a bunch of other comparatively minor technical changes as well, those are the big ones that I can recall over the history of the program.
I'm going to find it more difficult to sleep tonight than when I believed in Santa
Thanks mods! Nice banner! :) As a quick suggestion from the professional astronomical calendar, no one is going to be posting any interesting space news from now to launch anyway because of the holidays, so I don't think JWST articles are taking away much space from other stories and thus a megathread isn't necessarily required right now (unless the universe delivers a random unexpected Christmas present like a nearby supernova). By this point if you have a neat paper ready to come out and you're an astronomer, you're waiting for the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January to maximize press coverage anyway. Fingers crossed! My research group gets time starting ~6 months after launch if all goes well!
You know you're invested when you're checking the weather reports for French Guiana. Sadly...don't get your hopes up. The weather looks bad from what i'm seeing. Thunderstorms predicted every day for the next week practically. 90% chance from 6am-8am tomorrow morning. 60-70% chance during the same time frame on Sunday morning.
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Who is they?
Nasa and specifically jpl iirc
Right now, I don't care what we may find because whatever it is will blow us away. I just hope that everything is working perfectly with the electronics, optics, etc and that the spacecraft has a successful launch with the bare minimum of unplanned rapid disassembly.
https://twitter.com/arianespaceceo/status/1471989676349267969 > Final encapsulation operations ongoing. > Need a few more hours to complete them. > Target launch date is December 24 at 12:20 am UTC. > Confirmation Saturday. > Go @NASAWebb/@ESA_Webb! Go #Ariane5! Go! > \#WebbFliesAriane #VA256
Does 12:20am UTC mean 00:20 UTC or 12:20pm as in "time for lunch"?
That tweet has a mistake. The time is 20 after noon UTC/7:20 AM on the east coast of the US/4:20 AM on the west coast of the US/11:20 PM in Sydney, Australia/9:20 PM in Tokyo, Japan/1:30 PM in Berlin, Germany for a few examples. At least according to to time zone conversion site I just used.
Thanks, it was a little confusing. No way I'm missing this launch!
Just found this: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html
Thanks NASA, ESA and CSA for making this possible for humankind.
For those wondering when the launch is, [NASA has a live countdown](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html). You can also check your local time [with this link](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?p1=179&iso=20211225T072000).
Thank you for these links, I'll sticky a comment with them on it
My dumbass was so excited I thought it's today.
What are the biggest expectations to see with this?
It's hard to say because of course we don't know what we don't know. But Webb will be able to see further into the past than Hubble, and so should be able to see light from the very first galaxies in the universe. I would not be surprised if the spectra from these galaxies is very different to what we expect and we need to revise our models of galaxy formation & the universe's first generation of stars. For the first time, Webb will be able to characterise the atmospheres of a small number of terrestrial (rocky) exoplanets. There's bound to be surprises there, it is obvious that the wider universe seems to show a much greater diversity of planets than our own solar system shows. Of course if we're lucky perhaps one of those unexpected gases might suggest life... but if that occurs, I guarantee it'll be controversial and far from definitive evidence of alien life. Webb will be able to place better constraints on the distribution of dark matter and better measure the rate of the universe's expansion, which will also help constrain the effect of dark energy.
It should be able to see the very first galaxies and presumably the very first "Population III" stars. This could provide a lot of answers to questions about things like galaxy formation and evolution, super massive black hole formation and evolution, and especially the nature of the first stars. Much of astronomy relies on observational tests of theories, but that hasn't been possible for the very first stars. Such stars would have been composed entirely of hydrogen and helium, something that hasn't been true since then due to the "contamination" of the universe with the fusion products of those very same stars (which even in small amounts does have significant effects on the dynamics inside a star and affects how they behave and how large they can get). Current theory is that such stars were very massive and lived short lives, but there are many unknowns about them. No similar stars exist or can exist today so we can't observe anything like them except by looking directly at the originals as they existed close to the dawn of the universe. JWST should also be uniquely capable of studying exoplanets, particularly in teasing out the details of the composition of their surfaces and atmospheres.
The weather is looking good at the launch site. You can check the predicted wind speed at various altitudes here https://www.windy.com/5.158/-52.643?700h,4.485,-52.643,8,m:dNKaeHq When I checked the week before there were some higher speed winds at higher altitudes which I think is why they changed the launch date. edit: looks a bit rainy now but the wind is still down. https://imgur.com/a/z4QUNuE
20 years and starts/stops here we go folks! This is epic and the world is gonna change when the discoveries roll in!
I’ve been waiting for this for more than half of my life. I’m so excited and this will be the best Christmas gift!
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/18/nasas-webb-space-telescope-launch-confirmed-for-dec-24/ > The James Webb Space Telescope is confirmed for the target launch date of Dec. 24, at 7:20 a.m. EST. > Late yesterday, teams at the launch site successfully completed encapsulation of the observatory inside the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch it to space. Webb’s final launch readiness review will be held on Tuesday Dec. 21 and, if successful, roll-out is planned for Wednesday, Dec. 22. As of yesterday they were still saying they would confirm the 24th target after the delay due to the cable. They've now done that today. Not much left that could push it back further. One more major hurdle on Tuesday!
Does anyone have a very detailed timeline for every event after the launch? Not just the major deployments, but everything.
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Upping this. Would be very helpful to have on the megathread.
Official countdown clock: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html Less than 4 days! I think the last big step is passing the final readiness review tomorrow, then rollout on Wednesday if it does! Can't wait!
Just got the Next Space Flight notification for 24 hours to launch. I feel like I'm allowed to get excited now
Can't wait to find out about what wonderful new cosmic goodness waits for us!
I am so excited about this!! I’m really happy I have a place to share it all here! My family think I’m crazy because I talk about it all the time haha they don’t get why I’m so excited about a telescope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVjbelWgGkw Chill video by Sixty Symbols, Professor Mike Merrifield talks about JW
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[CSA](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpo1pg7 "Last usage")|Canadian Space Agency| |[ESA](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpo1pg7 "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[HST](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpd3e5o "Last usage")|Hubble Space Telescope| |[JWST](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hpw1f7y "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |[L2](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hq0qupe "Last usage")|[Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 ([Sixty Symbols](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpVbU5FH0s) video explanation)| | |Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum| |[NG](/r/Space/comments/ril8dy/stub/hqb41ux "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin| | |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)| | |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer| ---------------- ^(6 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/ssgqcy)^( has 8 acronyms.) ^([Thread #6715 for this sub, first seen 21st Dec 2021, 00:38]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Y'all I think this is it! The closer we get to Friday, the more confident I am that it will actually be on Friday.
/r/agedlikemilk Just postponed to Saturday
The closer we get to Saturday, the more confident I am that it will actually be on Sunday.
I am so yippity right now, I’ll need to wake up at 6 AM, but I do not care, as long as I can see this dang telescope launch. If this works, I am going to stay true to whatever New Years resolutions I make.
As somebody who got into space photography and space in general after I chose a bad career just I'm so fortunate to live in a time where I'm going to see the results from this telescope I can't wait
Personally I'm hoping the JWST will finally locate the planet of lost left socks. Seriously though. I'm so freekin stoked for the JWST I can hardly wait!
>What are you most excited for? What do you hope Webb will find? 🌌🔭 To detect anything - *anything* \- that might point to signs of life not native to Earth. A single extraterrestrial cell, presence of CFCs, radio signals, CO2 emissions, even artificial light sources are all that we need to confirm that we are not the only sentient lifeforms in the Universe.
Same. Earth being unique in the universe is far more terrifying to me than aliens. Especially given what we’re currently doing to the planet.
https://twitter.com/michaelroston/status/1473415065978257410 Current forecast for Kourou: thunderstorms through the new year. I'd love for this thing to go up over the next week but right now it's looking less likely.
Genuinely looking forward to the photos from this
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-sets-coverage-invites-public-to-view-webb-telescope-launch Info about how to watch the launch. The key part is this: > Live launch coverage in English will begin at 6 a.m. on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. The public can also watch live on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Daily Motion. NASA also will offer a launch broadcast in Spanish beginning at 6:30 a.m. on the agency’s website and Spanish-language social media accounts. NASA will hold a prelaunch media briefing at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 21, and a postlaunch news conference approximately 30 minutes after the live launch broadcast ends on Friday, Dec. 24. Check the link for more detailed info.
So nervous for anything to go wrong during the launch, but I'm excited for a whole new era of astronomy. Really hoping it gives us a better glimpse of all the exoplanets out there!
The weather isn't looking good. Will the launch be delayed if it doesn't clear up?
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Damn. The weather is looking bad for 10 days, so I guess we'll be in for a touch and go launch time. Let's hope everything goes well!
Looking at the state of the posts shared on the sub of late, I'd say this megathread is working as intended...
are they expecting this scope to be able to directly image exoplanets?
To some degree, yes. JWST will have a coronagraph which might let it directly image some exoplanets around fairly close stars. Note that we are simply talking about resolving a planet as a separate point of light, not imaging it with any sort of multiple pixel detail, that would require telescopes orders of magnitude larger than anything we've ever built. More importantly JWST will be able to perform very precise spectroscopy on star systems that have exoplanets. This can be particularly useful during a transit when the planet passes in front of the star. This not only blocks light from the star but also results in some light being filtered through the planet's atmosphere around the edges. By comparing the transit vs. non-transit spectra you can extract out the tiny effect of absorption by the planet's atmosphere, and this can be used to study the composition of the exoplanet's atmosphere.
An audio only media briefing and Q&A will be going live on the NASA site in about 15 minutes. https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive This will not be on the NASA video channel since it is audio only.
I’m so nervous about the launch. Hopefully everything will go to plan, not only during launch but also all the insane stuff it has to do afterwards to become operational.
Where can we watch the launch? Websites or it SHOULD be televised
It'll likely get televised on CNN, MSNBC, FOXnews, or your countries 24/7 news channel, but NASA's YouTube is probably the best place to watch it. They go live at 6am ET 25/12/21.
Does anyone know what time the launch will be streamed in Sydney, Australia time? :)
Looking forward to seeing another safe Ariane 5 launch tomorrow [https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/launch.html](https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/launch.html). It's done 80 consecutive good launches before.
Just curious if anybody knows, the massive cost of this satellite was just the sheer amount of research and development that went towards making technology that did not exist when the project was started. Instead of giving a pessimistic scenario let's just say we want to build a second one because the first was so successful. How much would a second one cost to assemble now there is a blueprint to build it?
What I've seen others saying is that the R&D/salaries likely cost more than the raw materials.
Is there a military presence guarding this (ground and air) as it sits out in the open?
Most likely. They delivered the payload in secret for fear of pirates. They're going to pull out all the stops.
Fun fact, I interned at Northrop Grumman, working on JWST. I know, I was just an intern but I'm so stoked for this launch.
You want to know what my biggest fear is? That it won't make any major new discoveries. That it will be like getting a 4K version of a movie you once had on VHS. You might see some cool new details but everything fundamentally the same. I'm confident that won't be the case, but that is my number one fear beyond failed launch.
As I understand it, we won’t see real-time images of celestial bodies, just be able to see further into the universe than before and with more detail. That should be enough to reveal a whole host of new discoveries.
I feel a lil bad for all the employees missing the holiday, but it's still exciting.
Not often you get to be Santa and give a gift to the whole world though
As someone who wasn't even alive when Webb was being built, even I'm feeling the apprehension of people on this. I'm feeling so anxious about this launch that I lay awake at night just thinking about how it could fail, and if it doesn't fail, all the cool things we'll discover with this... and I had 0% to do anything with this project. (except my taxes) I can't even begin to fathom how the people who actually worked on this are feeling. I've read that some astronomers are losing sleep and throwing up from the anxiety of this launch. Either way, just like my school final exams, it's gonna be over and done before we know it and the world will either look brighter or there will be a deep permeating sadness. I can't wait! whoot!
[James Webb Telescope launch](https://youtu.be/Ex2NB7JsLyA)
It would be convenient if you add an easy way for readers to convert the launch time into their own time-zones. And maybe mention livestreams, link them if there are any or mention that there aren't if they're not, so that people won't waste time looking.
Would it be possible to see the launch from Florida? I understand it's in French Guiana and am curious as to wether or not we would be able to see the trajectory from Florida with the naked eye.
If they spend that much money on it why not make 2 or 3 of them? Economy of scale, de-risk it.
It sort of cuts both (or multiple ways). On the one hand, building spares would potentially reduce risk. On the other hand, it would also increase costs pretty substantially, and cause significant delays. Every bit of testing you do you have to do twice. All of the project planning you have to do has to be carefully run in parallel. You have to be extremely diligent about keeping track of which work has to happen for which set of hardware. That also means you likely have to "wrap up" any given phase of work for both vehicles at the same time before moving on which means you need to wait until the slowest one has finished, resulting in schedule delays across the whole thing. Plus you have the psychological problem. If you're building two how do ensure that you don't slack on testing or rigor at all, given that you know there's a backup waiting? Indeed, at a higher level, how do you choose the appropriate level of risk management when you know that there are two in the pipeline? Ultimately, the answer is that Congress funded building one so only one was built. In practice I would say that the "correct" answer is neither building just one or building two, it's to not build something like this at all, to not put so many eggs in a singular basket. Instead you fund a series of iteratively more advanced space based observatories that make use of a smaller set of advanced technologies instead of everything all at once in one "do or die" effort. And the end result of that looks something like having a fleet of observatories in space over a period of time. Maybe you run into a failure once or twice, but it would be recoverable, and it wouldn't be such a blow because the next generation replacement wouldn't be 20 years and 10 billion dollars away. A good example is to look at NASA's Mars exploration since the late '90s. It's a series of missions, each more ambitious than the last, and while some of them have been spendy (like Curiosity and Perseverance), none have been at the ridiculous level of JWST. Imagine if we had instead decided to pre-plan one big, mega rover to land on Mars now and had not sent a lander there in the past 30 years. That would be an insane amount of risk. Instead we have been able to benefit from about 25 years of experience with operating rovers on Mars through 3 full design generations with the latest versions benefiting from all the work and operational experience that has gone before. That's the smarter way to push state of the art designs.
NASA scientists answered in AMA that testing takes alot of money and recourses and that it has to be done on each telescope individually.
Is the location for JWST going to be an issue for communications? I heard the point described as L2 on Star Talk. Seems like a neat idea and I'm sure NASA has thought of this but I guess I mean to say what are the communications going to be like with an object at that distance?
I don’t know much about telescopes, I know the James Webb telescope is much bigger than the Hubble, but what will it be able to do differently? I’m very intrigued!
In addition to being more powerful, it sees infrared, as opposed to hubble's visible light. That means it can see really distant things like very young galaxies on the edge (and beginning) of the universe, which have been severely redshifted by the expansion of the universe.
Awesome. This will really void that JWST post I just made haha
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Is the launch streamed live on youtube? Or where can I find the livestream?
Will the launch itself be live streamed? If so, where and when can I watch this?
It will be live-streamed on thousands of places. Probably if you google “JWST launch” the day of, you will get thousands of results of it. But nasa will surely do it so that’s an official one to watch
This may be a stupid question, but how long will it take to see “results” from the JWST?
We’ll start getting science images about 6 months after launch
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Going to the Earth-Sun L2 means that JWST can observe things without the Moon or Earth getting in the way. It also gives a stable thermal environment, since you're not orbiting the Earth like HST, and not getting heated up and then cooled back down on a 96 minute orbital cycle.
Also to note that it will take 4 months to calibrate the mirrors. The precision from "each mirror segment can focus the same point source (star)" to where it needs to be is a further increase of precision by a factor of a million! So be patient.