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Update: James Webb Space Telescope discovers candidates for most distant (and possibly "youngest") galaxies yet discovered


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The info page on NASA's site is really cool. I had no idea it would orbit as far out as it will be. 

 

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WEBB.NASA.GOV

The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called Webb or JWST) is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror. Webb will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on...

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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WWW.THEVERGE.COM

We’ll have to wait for images, but it’s going to be worth it.

 

Quote

 

NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope may have reached its final parking spot in space, but there’s still a long road ahead for the observatory before it can start taking the dazzling pictures of the cosmos that scientists have been eagerly awaiting. Over the next five months, mission engineers will meticulously tweak and test the telescope in order to prepare the spacecraft for its lifelong mission of observing the Universe.

 

Yesterday at around 2PM ET, the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, fired its onboard thrusters for a little less than five minutes, putting the vehicle into its final orbit in space. It was a crucial last step for JWST’s journey through the cosmos, capping off a 30-day voyage from the launchpad to its parking orbit roughly 1 million miles from Earth. During that time, the telescope underwent a complex unfolding and shapeshifting process, blossoming into its final form needed to collect light from distant stars and galaxies.

 

 

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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Update: James Webb Space Telescope successfully reaches its final "parking spot" 1 million miles from Terra
  • 1 month later...
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WWW.UNIVERSETODAY.COM

Engineers and scientists for the James Webb Space Telescope have completed two more steps in the telescope’s primary mirror alignment process, and in a briefing today, officials said JWST’s...


Headline is dumb. But. Compared to the GBT image of the same star. The resolution of this new telescope is fucking outrageous.

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51 minutes ago, Uaarkson said:
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WWW.UNIVERSETODAY.COM

Engineers and scientists for the James Webb Space Telescope have completed two more steps in the telescope’s primary mirror alignment process, and in a briefing today, officials said JWST’s...


Compared to the Hubble image of the same star. The resolution of this new telescope is fucking outrageous.

 

I see they let JJ Abrams drive this thing.

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1 hour ago, Nokra said:

God I hope not. 

 

As unlikely as it might seem, I would love for us to confirm the existence of other life, even primitive life, on another planet within the next 50-100 years or so. Just imagine what kind of animals there might be on a planet with a completely different atmosphere and gravity than Earth's, and how evolution would take its course there. 

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7 hours ago, Brick said:

 

As unlikely as it might seem, I would love for us to confirm the existence of other life, even primitive life, on another planet within the next 50-100 years or so. Just imagine what kind of animals there might be on a planet with a completely different atmosphere and gravity than Earth's, and how evolution would take its course there. 

What seems unlikely? That theres life? I don't find that to be unlikely, more of a certainty, the universe is too large. 

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The full res photo made me legit emotional. What an achievement. I still vividly remember a conversation I had with a customer back when I worked with my dad at his locksmith shop in Friendswood, a town close to JSC where a ton of NASA people live.

 

She was working on James Webb. She was a PhD in optics, and was one of the primary designers of the lenses for this mission. She was so excited for the project and what it meant for the pursuit of knowledge. To think a little over 10 years later she is sitting in front of a computer there viewing an image she had been dreaming of for at this point 20 years.

 

Kudos to all who were involved in making this happen

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29 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

What seems unlikely? That theres life? I don't find that to be unlikely, more of a certainty, the universe is too large. 

Unlikely that we'll find life within that timeframe. We might not find any for another couple thousand years (if we make it that long). The universe is so vast we might not until our next evolutionary descendants. 

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I think sometimes people also forget the vastness of the time the universe has been around when they point out that the likelihood of life elsewhere is very high.

 

Sure, the odds that life will flourish on another planet given how many galaxies, stars, and planets there are seems logically high. But to exist at the same time and in close enough proximity that we will ever observe them is significantly less likely.

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4 minutes ago, Brick said:

Unlikely that we'll find life within that timeframe. We might not find any for another couple thousand years (if we make it that long). The universe is so vast we might not until our next evolutionary descendants. 

Oh, agreed on that. The distances make detection and communications almost impossible, and civilizations we could detect now would likely be dead for billions of years.

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