4 ms·
We currently have the 80 cm Spitzer telescope in space that covers the same wavelength range, and the 3.5 m Herschel telescope also recently finished its missio
by semaphoreP 10y ago
We currently have the 80 cm Spitzer telescope in space that covers the same wavelength range, and the 3.5 m Herschel telescope also recently finished its mission at slightly longer wavelengths. So really to make breakthroughs in science to justify the cost of a space mission, we need the full 6.5 m telescope.
- welterde 10y agoThere is also SOFIA [1] (2.5m telescope on an airplane), which can do certain far-IR things (mid-IR as well iirc). For the VLT (8m ground-based telescopes) there is also VISIR [2] which is an mid-IR imager/spectrometer (and uses the same detector chip as one of the JWST instruments iirc). [1] https://www.sofia.usra.edu/ https://www.sofia.usra.edu/ [2] http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/instruments/visir.html http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/instruments/visir....
- semaphoreP 10y agoOh yeah, those do cover the same wavelength range. The atmosphere of the Earth absorbs a lot of the light and has a strong thermal background though. The sensitivity of JWST is orders of magnitude better than ground/airborne observatories [1], so things that JWST want to do will be basically impossible from the ground. [1] http://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/multiwavelength-astronomy/images/infrared/tools/JWSTsensitivity.jpg http://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/multiwavelength-astronomy/imag...
- welterde 10y agoOh I am perfectly aware. It's just not all projects require JWST-level sensitivity and they are somewhat less known. Also I think SOFIA in visitor-mode is hard to beat when it comes to the coolness-factor.