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I only skimmed the article and found a few errors...
by mehphp 5y ago
I only skimmed the article and found a few errors...
- flyyingbarron 5y agoSorry about that! The price was obviously a typo :( What other errors did you find?
- jffry 5y agoJWST doesn't actually stay right in L2 (which is in Earth's shadow). Instead it orbits around L2 about twice a year in a halo orbit, with a radius large enough that it can have nearly constant access to solar power (I do not know if it fully avoids the moon's shadow). You can see a good animation near the top of https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html
- flyyingbarron 5y agoThanks. Changed that to "while staying behind the Earth"
- spiderice 5y agoAwesome link. Thanks for posting. I'm wondering, does anyone know why we didn't send JWST to L4 or L5, where (as mentioned in the link above) it could remain orbiting indefinitely without the need for fuel? Is it because those points are a lot harder to get a spacecraft to?
- jffry 5y agoJWST is making observations in orange to mid-infrared wavelengths. The sun, earth, and moon are all quite hot and emit a lot of light in that range of wavelengths. Near L2, JWST can use one sunshield to block out light from all three bodies, with less impact on what portion of the sky it can observe
- alt219 5y agoMinor pedantic point—kelvin is the unit of measure of the Kelvin scale. There is no degree K, just K.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]