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What happens when the true color, visible spectrum images are exponentially less interesting and more dull? Does that increase public support? I don't think any

What happens when the true color, visible spectrum images are exponentially less interesting and more dull? Does that increase public support? I don't think anyone in the "general public" cares or even realizes what exact wavelengths are captured and translated in every image, they care how awesome it looks. To my understand, you cannot see the rings of uranus in the visible range. And remember all those first images from the JWST, those garnered public support preeetty heavily and those were all infrared and translated. On the science side, some wavelengths just do not survive interstellar travel. You need the entire range to get the most data. Lots of times visible phenomena are just white or grey or blue anyways. When there's something that's actually more interesting in visible light, we'll see it.

dylan604 3y ago
Let's also not forget that we have so many visible light telescopes already. JWST specifically needed to be a space platform way the hell away from the earth since it is essentially looking at heat. Being on earth or even in earth orbit would not be cold enough to make it worth while. Even still, we have to cool the systems because the heat from the electronics doing the science could interfere with its own readings. Once that coolant is gone, the platform will be pretty much useless. So it's not going to be wasting any time looking at things in the same spectrum that pretty much any telescope on the ground can do. Sure, we still have Hubble, but even the larger ground based telescopes with adaptive optics can see in more detail than Hubble at this point.
hnburnsy 3y ago
Personally, I want reality, reality being what I would see if I fly by in a space ship.
- xwolfi 3y ago
  Completely wrong. What you see is a product of what you need to see, adapted by evolution over millions of years, so that you can survive on Earth a bit longer than 5 minutes. We're talking of seeing a barren planet millions of kms away, flying in space ships that are thousands of years away in the making: do you really REALLY think "reality" is what your eyes see now so you don't stumble around in the bright light shower of Earth ? If we have to survive in space, we'll have to see the rings of Uranus, if only to avoid them when we fly by in your space ship :)
- jrumbut 3y ago
  That's not an unreasonable desire, and to satisfy it there are true color pictures of Uranus including one from a space ship that flew by: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#/media/File%3AUranus_as_seen_by_NASA's_Voyager_2_(remastered)_-_JPEG_converted.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#/media/File%3AUranus_... As the article points out, they are extremely boring to look at. A lot of space objects are that way. The mission of the JWST is to look at these other wavelengths where there is more interesting activity and where the signal from that activity survives the trip to (near) earth.

dylan604 3y ago

Let's also not forget that we have so many visible light telescopes already. JWST specifically needed to be a space platform way the hell away from the earth since it is essentially looking at heat. Being on earth or even in earth orbit would not be cold enough to make it worth while. Even still, we have to cool the systems because the heat from the electronics doing the science could interfere with its own readings. Once that coolant is gone, the platform will be pretty much useless. So it's not going to be wasting any time looking at things in the same spectrum that pretty much any telescope on the ground can do. Sure, we still have Hubble, but even the larger ground based telescopes with adaptive optics can see in more detail than Hubble at this point.

hnburnsy 3y ago

Personally, I want reality, reality being what I would see if I fly by in a space ship.

xwolfi 3y ago
Completely wrong. What you see is a product of what you need to see, adapted by evolution over millions of years, so that you can survive on Earth a bit longer than 5 minutes. We're talking of seeing a barren planet millions of kms away, flying in space ships that are thousands of years away in the making: do you really REALLY think "reality" is what your eyes see now so you don't stumble around in the bright light shower of Earth ? If we have to survive in space, we'll have to see the rings of Uranus, if only to avoid them when we fly by in your space ship :)
jrumbut 3y ago
That's not an unreasonable desire, and to satisfy it there are true color pictures of Uranus including one from a space ship that flew by: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#/media/File%3AUranus_as_seen_by_NASA's_Voyager_2_(remastered)_-_JPEG_converted.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus#/media/File%3AUranus_... As the article points out, they are extremely boring to look at. A lot of space objects are that way. The mission of the JWST is to look at these other wavelengths where there is more interesting activity and where the signal from that activity survives the trip to (near) earth.