Heck, they weren’t even sure gravity obeyed the c limit until they correlated a few gravity wave detector events with radio telescope events a few years back. Gravity remains one of the greatest mysteries in physics.
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One of my favorite xkcd comics:
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And why astronomers are so darn frustrated these days, despite the ongoing successful commissioning of JWST:
I sometimes really wish I’d been a fly on the wall the first time an astronomer realized that they weren’t able to see over 90% of what the universe was made up of, and were now in the same camp as particle physicists teasing things out via indirect observations.
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It probably wasn’t that big a meeting. Just one crazy guy wondering why it was dark at night.
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I’m soooooo excited!
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Mark your calendars, y’all: July 12!
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/first-images-from-nasa-s-webb-space-telescope-coming-soon
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For those who’d like to pin a countdown… Webb page[1] in their browser, click on the picture below:
Also, NIRCam Imaging checkout was completed yesterday, June 2.
-
Not sorry!
↩︎
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Between May 23 and 25, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope sustained an impact to one of its primary mirror segments. After initial assessments, the team found the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect in the data.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/06/08/webb-engineered-to-endure-micrometeoroid-impacts/
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You always have to hate that first ding or scratch on your brand-new car.
Edit: just saw this in the comment thread for Scott Manley’s latest YouTube video.
Dinged already? We parked JWST in a bad neighborhood… soon it’ll be up on blocks and its reaction wheels missing…
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The best thing about that is NASA engineered it beyond what was minimal to make it able to deal with that stuff and even with the ding, it’s doing better than planned.
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July 12 and the telescope sends back one picture before experiencing another impact:
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And NASA targets all of Elon Musk’s satellites and destroys them with a heretofore unmentioned laser array in the ISS.
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Nah, Starman launched first, giving NASA plenty of time to work out an orbit that avoids him.
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NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) imaging (parallel only) checkout was completed on June 8. Fifteen modes to go!
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Here’s the page to bookmark to see the first images from JWST when they go live on July 12 beginning at 10:30am:
First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope
Image Release Day
- 10:30 a.m. EDT – Live coverage of the image release broadcast will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. The public also can watch live on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Daily Motion.
Two more instrument modes checked out today, eleven to go!
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Jeez, you keep turning up with these like, an hour after I looked myself.
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