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How To Build a Telescope That Trumps Hubble

Posted by samzenpus on from the bigger-and-badder dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In cleanrooms around the country NASA and its contractors are building the James Webb Space Telescope, a marvel of engineering scheduled to launch in 2014. This gallery shows the features that will allow Webb to take the universe's baby pictures in infrared — most notably an 18-segment mirror and a 5-layer sunshield. I can't wait until Webb settles into its Lagrangian point way out beyond the moon and gets to work."

2 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The universe is infinite by fishbowl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Was space created by the Big Bang, or did the Big Bang happen inside of space that already existed?

    Observe something that is more distant in space-time than the big bang, and settle the matter!

    It is fine to speculate, but if you want coherent scientific models of the universe, you need to either assume the 13.7 billion light-year horizon or else show by observation or by theory that the horizon does not exist.

    The ideas of an infinite theoretical universe aren't incompatible with a finite observable universe, but people who build telescopes are going to be concerned exclusively with the practical aspects of the latter, even if they believe in the former.

    --
    -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  2. Re:Look at the price tag by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a professional astronomer I hoped this thing would never have happened. It costs 6 billion and at this price tag a 5% overrun is $300 million, about six times the cost of the entire SDSS project, which has undoubtedly gave us more science that James Webb ever will.

    Science isn't something you can measure by how many buckets you collect. Not all buckets have the same value.
     

    True, Hubble and JWST make great pictures, function as amazing PR machines, but most science at the end of the day comes from survey imaging and spectroscopic observations.

    If you honestly believe that all Hubble and JWST are doing or will do is collect pretty pictures, you're either hopelessly ignorant or hopelessly biased. But ff you want to talk spectroscopy - consider that four of the Hubble five main instruments are dedicated to spectroscopy, and two of JWST's three main instruments are so dedicated. If you want to talk surveys... Check out Hubble's schedule from Feb 14, 2011, or January 29, 2011 for some recent survey campaigns that Hubble is participating in.