2 ms·
"Hubble has been operating for ~30 years now." Right, and the GPS constellation has been active for almost thirty years too. I think the GP is probably right t
by mikepurvis 5y ago
"Hubble has been operating for ~30 years now."
Right, and the GPS constellation has been active for almost thirty years too. I think the GP is probably right that it would be great if the risk associated with a single mega launch/deployment could be spread over a fleet, but ultimately it does no good if you can't use that configuration to get the observations you want, hence the question. It has less to do with it being a "software solution" and more just whether it would actually practically work.
To their point, though, lots of ground-based radio telescopes are now also arrays of many dishes [1], so it's not at all hard to imagine that a similar configuration could be of value in space.
[1]: https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vla/ https://public.nrao.edu/telescopes/vla/
- adhesive_wombat 5y agoThe fearsome requirements imposed by optical interferometry are a real killer here: the JWST mirror segments can be controlled with 10nm precision for a reason. Radio is a billion times easier (at least in naive terms): wavelengths in the kilometers rather than hundreds of nanometers
- mikepurvis 5y agoAh, that is a helpful distinction. I had been thinking that JWST was for radio observations, but it's the opposite of course; JWST is for making high energy observations of things like gamma rays.
- bashinator 5y agoOn the contrary, JWST is mostly focused on the near infrared. Good for seeing through dust and for capturing highly red-shifted faraway objects.