5 ms·

The James Webb Space Telescope is working as well as astronomers dreamed

51 points by sharkweek 5y ago

AIorNot 5y ago
Awesome
mttjj 5y ago
I’ve only been following this deployment as a casual observer (mostly from the NPR stories like this one) but I’m really excited to see what the future holds for this thing. It almost seems like it’s been too good to be true (great launch, flawless deployment of the mirrors, even reports that the lifespan of the device may be nearly double original estimates because of minimal fuel consumption) but I don’t think it is. Everything I see says this is the real deal! Does anyone have a good site that I can bookmark (or RSS subscribe) that will post updates of discoveries and all the photos it’s taking as they come in? (On a tangential note: the software engineer in me is insanely jealous that something this complex has gone so smoothly. Must be better at writing unit tests than I am or something… yeah, that’s probably it.)
- sparker72678 5y ago
  If you had $10B over 24 years you’d have enough resources to write some good unit tests, too! ;)
- pkaye 5y ago
  Here is a bunch of cool links I've collected over the past few months: This one is the Space Telescope Science Institute that manages the JWST operation. https://www.youtube.com/user/spacetelescopevision/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/spacetelescopevision/videos This one is the JWST channel itself but no photos yet. https://www.youtube.com/c/NASAWebbTelescope/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/NASAWebbTelescope/videos This will probably be the best source for photos in the future. https://webbtelescope.org/ https://webbtelescope.org/ The following link has a lot of documentation about the telescope, instrumentation and planned observations. Really a good sink of time. https://www.stsci.edu/jwst https://www.stsci.edu/jwst A lot of content here about how the scientists use the telescope. https://www.youtube.com/c/JWSTObserver/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/JWSTObserver/videos John Mather talking about the system engineering of the JWST. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hHiRXQUiaE&list=PLMN_sNW0v5jpCWl_BOBwAyFdKmyXYqx1V&index=6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hHiRXQUiaE&list=PLMN_sNW0v5...
ncmncm 5y ago
Are they still waiting for it to cool down to the point where they can see farther than Hubble?
- pkaye 5y ago
  There are four instruments. One of them MIRI needs to be actively cooled down to 7K. I believe that should be completed sometime next month.
dilippkumar 5y ago
I’ve been following their progress on this RSS feed: https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/feed/ https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/feed/ Strong recommend if you are into RSS.

51 points by sharkweek 5y ago

Awesome

I’ve only been following this deployment as a casual observer (mostly from the NPR stories like this one) but I’m really excited to see what the future holds for this thing. It almost seems like it’s been too good to be true (great launch, flawless deployment of the mirrors, even reports that the lifespan of the device may be nearly double original estimates because of minimal fuel consumption) but I don’t think it is. Everything I see says this is the real deal! Does anyone have a good site that I can bookmark (or RSS subscribe) that will post updates of discoveries and all the photos it’s taking as they come in? (On a tangential note: the software engineer in me is insanely jealous that something this complex has gone so smoothly. Must be better at writing unit tests than I am or something… yeah, that’s probably it.)

sparker72678 5y ago
If you had $10B over 24 years you’d have enough resources to write some good unit tests, too! ;)
pkaye 5y ago
Here is a bunch of cool links I've collected over the past few months: This one is the Space Telescope Science Institute that manages the JWST operation. https://www.youtube.com/user/spacetelescopevision/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/spacetelescopevision/videos This one is the JWST channel itself but no photos yet. https://www.youtube.com/c/NASAWebbTelescope/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/NASAWebbTelescope/videos This will probably be the best source for photos in the future. https://webbtelescope.org/ https://webbtelescope.org/ The following link has a lot of documentation about the telescope, instrumentation and planned observations. Really a good sink of time. https://www.stsci.edu/jwst https://www.stsci.edu/jwst A lot of content here about how the scientists use the telescope. https://www.youtube.com/c/JWSTObserver/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/JWSTObserver/videos John Mather talking about the system engineering of the JWST. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hHiRXQUiaE&list=PLMN_sNW0v5jpCWl_BOBwAyFdKmyXYqx1V&index=6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hHiRXQUiaE&list=PLMN_sNW0v5...

ncmncm 5y ago

Are they still waiting for it to cool down to the point where they can see farther than Hubble?

pkaye 5y ago
There are four instruments. One of them MIRI needs to be actively cooled down to 7K. I believe that should be completed sometime next month.

dilippkumar 5y ago

I’ve been following their progress on this RSS feed: https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/feed/ https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/feed/ Strong recommend if you are into RSS.