mynameisben
Half man, half-wit
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2003
- Posts
- 50,215
Did you watch it? I did.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched today, a Christmas gift from the rocket scientists at NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. The launch went off as flawlessly as can be imagined and is now on it's monthlong flight to L2, a point in space some four times as distant as the Moon.
The JWST is a really big deal. At a cost of $10 billion, it is the most expensive telescope ever made. It is also the most powerful, a quantum leap in capability beyond the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST has over 100 times the light gathering power of the Hubble, and more importantly, because of it's infrared detection capability it can peer through clouds of hydrogen gas that the Hubble cannot. This capability allows the JWST to see deeper into space and resolve images of stars that were formed just after the Big Bang that started it all. The things this new telescope will discover in the years to come will amaze us all.
Merry Christmas!
Ben
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched today, a Christmas gift from the rocket scientists at NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. The launch went off as flawlessly as can be imagined and is now on it's monthlong flight to L2, a point in space some four times as distant as the Moon.
The JWST is a really big deal. At a cost of $10 billion, it is the most expensive telescope ever made. It is also the most powerful, a quantum leap in capability beyond the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST has over 100 times the light gathering power of the Hubble, and more importantly, because of it's infrared detection capability it can peer through clouds of hydrogen gas that the Hubble cannot. This capability allows the JWST to see deeper into space and resolve images of stars that were formed just after the Big Bang that started it all. The things this new telescope will discover in the years to come will amaze us all.
Merry Christmas!
Ben
