The Final Frontier or Ye Olde Space-Exlporation Thrade

[JoeP]

Pluto thread.

APOD's picture:



It's fun to look at the earlier, fuzzier ones too.

I think this is the official mission page: New Horizons Spacecraft Displays Pluto’s Big Heart | NASA

[JoeP]

Aaand ...

[JoeP]

Aaand ...

That's no dwarf planet ...

[Crumb]

[JoeP]

And and and ...

?

[Dingfod]

It's bald.

[ceptimus]

The latest photos beamed back give a wonderful backlit view of the mountains.



More here: Pluto Wows in Spectacular New Backlit Panorama | NASA

[fragment]

James Webb space telescope goes up in 39 days.

Some details about the telescope capabilities

Going to orbit at L2, which might be my favourite Lagrangian, of Earth-Sun system

Sensors mostly target IR part of the spectrum, which allows better detection of radiating blackbodies through gas cloud. That and 6.5m diameter mirror should allow it to detect stuff further away, and therefore further back in time, than Hubble.

Looks pretty cool too.

[fragment]

Read a bit more, and of course the IR thing also helps with seeing further, because red shift.

Also those mirrors are gold-plated beryllium, surprisingly light, and presumably engineered with some kinda crazy precision. And they fold to fit in the rocket.

[fragment]

Oh hey did I mention there's a JWST Lego Ideas design that is under consideration for production?

LEGO IDEAS - James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

[fragment]

After delays from a couple of technical difficulties, JWST is in the rocket, fuelled, and positioned on the pad, ready to be launched in just over a day.

[Ari]

Woo!
I wonder how it’s going to break…

The thing with the JWST is that something like the JW is going to go out into space, it’s the next and obvious evolution of space telescopistry, It would be lovely if it all worked perfectly and we got 10+ years out of the mission, however all the delays are extra frustrating because the thing is old tech by now, and wouldn’t be made the same today, so the longer the mission is delayed the longer everyone waits to see if a modern version will need to be built, or if this will do.

[JoeP]

Nasa launches $10bn James Webb space telescope | Nasa | The Guardian



James Webb: world’s most powerful telescope makes its first call to Australia on Christmas Day | Space | The Guardian

[fragment]

JWST was the first live launch I've watched since, I dunno, one of the 80s shuttle launches? Not Challenger, I didn't live watch that. I guess the media here stopped showing launches live and I never really sought them out online until now.

Anyways, not much to see in the launch - it hit the cloud layer pretty quick, but rockets are still pretty impressive engineering wise.

[Ari]

Thanks to my youtube recommendations over the last few years I’ve watched a ton of live rocket launches. Knowing just how big the rockets are combined with being live makes it exciting but otherwise it’s a bit funny you’re sitting on the edge of your seat for an uneventful, practically boring, launch. I really enjoyed watching the experimental Starship tests as cheering for the thing to complete it’s mission then turn into a giant ball of fire doesn’t feel as bad.

One big difference is the Ariane 5 rocket really leaps off the launch pad once ignited, no slow build up, just a sudden “and we’re off!”

[viscousmemories]

I'm so fucking excited about the JWST. I can stare at the Hubble Deep Field for days on end; I may never emerge from a deep dive into whatever this beast comes up with.

[JoeP]

Space.

Out-of-control SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon | SpaceX | The Guardian

Bill Gray, who writes software to track near-Earth objects, asteroids, minor planets, and comets, has said the Falcon 9’s upper stage will very likely hit the far side of the moon, near the equator, on 4 March.
...
“This is the first unintentional case [of space junk hitting the moon] of which I am aware,” Gray added.

Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard University, wrote that the impact was due on 4 March but was “not a big deal”.

[viscousmemories]

YouTube recommended this video to me yesterday and it was in fact interesting!

LIVE | The first image from the James Webb Space Telescope! (and why it looks a bit naff) - YouTube

tl;dw: the first image captured by JWST has arrived and it's a collage of images of a single star, each taken from one of the 18 mirrors, that they will use to focus the telescope.

[JoeP]

[Shake]

I've recently done some work in support of the (Nancy Grace) Roman Space Telescope (formerly WFIRST). It's going to have a field of vision 100x that of Hubble.

[JoeP]

Shake?

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Space.

Out-of-control SpaceX rocket on collision course with moon | SpaceX | The Guardian

One hour until impact.

Which we won't be able to see. On account of being on the far side.

No longer thought to be a bit of SpaceX, more likely some Chinese junk.

Space junk set to crash into far side of moon and cause huge crater | The moon | The Guardian

Spent rocket body believed to be part of Chinese Chang’e 5-T1 mission expected to hit lunar surface at 5,500mph

Chinese junk at moonset?

[JoeP]

[JoeP]

Webb has Now Taken the Sharpest Image the Laws of Physics Allow - Universe Today

This image demonstrates that all 18 mirror segments have been precisely aligned to act as one giant, high-precision 6.5-meter (21.3-foot) primary telescope mirror.

“We now have achieved what’s called ‘diffraction limited alignment’ of the telescope,” said Marshall Perrin, deputy project scientist for Webb at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “The mirrors are focused together as finely as the laws of physics allow, and this is the sharpest image you can get from a telescope of this size.”

[JoeP]

Same star from the Spitzer telescope:

#JWST is looking awesome pic.twitter.com/kYtEpaiV58

— gbrammer (@gbrammer) March 17, 2022

Those are all galaxies in the background.