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This is pretty sad to hear. The Webb telescope is highly anticipated, not only becaue it has a 3x larger mirror than Hubble, but because it is capable of observ
by _ph_ 9y ago
This is pretty sad to hear. The Webb telescope is highly anticipated, not only becaue it has a 3x larger mirror than Hubble, but because it is capable of observing in the infrared range, something no earth based telescope is able to due to atmosphere absorption.
This would open a huge treasure trove for astronomy and cosmology.
- Tepix 9y agoIt's mirror has a 6.5m diameter vs 2.4m for Hubble. That's a 25sqm collecting area vs 4.5sqm for Hubble. The area is more than 5 times as large. Infrared light is absorbed by the water in the atmosphere. There are infrared telescopes on earth, they are located in high elevations in dry places.
- _ph_ 9y agoI was referring to the mirror diameter. Of course, the area is even much larger. And infrared telescopes on high elevations are certainly better than telescopes on low ground, still the atmosphere is a big barieer. For that reason the SOFIA telescope was built into a 747, as the airplane gets up to almost 15 kilometers and thus the observation conditions in the infrared range are much better than any ground based observatory. Obviously, an airplane isn't the best platform to mount a telescope. The Webb telescope should be able to provide a way better view into the infrared range than any telescope available so far.