NASA/Space thread

[NobodyHere]

I really hope this works, failure could kill any interest in funding future space projects.

[PilotMan]

I hope so, the information that it gleans could be incredible.

[GrantDawg]

We are going to find out the Kardashians are the center of universe after all, aren't we?

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

We are going to find out the Kardashians are the center of universe after all, aren't we?

I'd find a way to destroy the telescope if it did

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Nobody Here

I really hope this works, failure could kill any interest in funding future space projects.

It could, but the amount spent on it is a pittance in the grand scheme of things. We could do 'safe' projects that don't really move the needle in terms of our capabilities, but advancement means taking risks so ... I'm glad we're doing this and not something more cautious.

[Brian Swartz]

James Webb is now fully deployed! Now comes the long wait to see if the sunshield cools it sufficiently as expected, and if the precise mirror controls allow it to focus as expected.

[Thomkal]

yay

[tarcone]

Cannot wait for photos

[NobodyHere]

If the first thing we see is an alien mooning us then I shall die a happy man.

[Brian Swartz]

I'll raise a glass to you dying a happy man even though the other part isn't going to happen

[Edward64]

Waiting for those first pics.

re: Aliens, I'd be happy to find single cell organisms on the Moon or Mars. I am unsure if I'd want a superior technological race finding us. Lots of historical precedence where that did not turn out well.

Are those aliens going to be ST: First Contact Vulcans & Federation type or are they going to be more Battle Los Angeles type.

[Brian Swartz]

The thing about all that historical precedent is that it only tells us what intelligent life similar to humans would be likely to do. Alien advanced life could be far worse or far better than our example, and we have no way of knowing which as we have exactly zero sample size there.

What's going to be interesting to me is what happens if James Webb finds an atmosphere suitable for life - i.e significant amounts of oxygen, etc - on one of the exoplanets. It's one of those 'that would be really cool' moments, but we're unlikely in the extreme to know whether there actually is life there, and it will probably be far enough away that even if there *was* life there it may not still be there anymore, and there's certainly nothing we'd be able to do about it in any relevant timeframe vis a vis contacting them.

My guess is if that happens the internet goes crazy for a while in certain circles but it all amounts to a fat lot of nothing. Even if we found artificial lights on Proxima B which is probably the best case scenario for the 'we want to find aliens' crowd, we aren't close to the point where it's feasible to send a probe there, establish contact, etc. So what exactly do we do about it?

[Brian Swartz]

Webb has reached L2 and the insertion burn for the orbit there apparently went according to plan.

[NobodyHere]

Yay Science and Engineering!

More Equations less Invasions!

[Edward64]

Looking forward to some amazing nebula pics.

EDIT: for a guestimate

“We are planning a series of “wow” images to be released at the end of commissioning when we start normal science operations that are designed to showcase what this telescope can do,” said Jane Rigby, Webb Operations Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center at a press briefing in January. “They will showcase all four science instruments and they will really knock everybody’s socks off.”

The plan is to release images at one time and not as they’re taken. That could mean that the world will have to wait a while because a lot of testing needs to be done in the wake of Webb being fully deployed last weekend.

So when will we see Webb’s “wow” images? My best guess is the last week of May 2022. By then NASA will have aligned the 18 hexagonal of Webb’s 21 feet/6.5 meter mirror and collimated it using a few bright stars.

[Edward64]

Damn, some heads are going to roll for this mess. $10B for pics like this

Behold, the 1st images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope! | Space

[Brian Swartz]

Queue the conspiracy theorists. Oh wait, they've been on board for a while, there was no need to queue them.

In all seriousness I'm still mildly concerned about the cooling operation. Temperatures in some areas don't seem to fit with predictions. But MIRI has been slowly but steadily cooling for a while now so as long as that continues I'll keep my panic level to a minimum.

[Edward64]

Essentially a huge coronal mass ejection (can we just call it a solar flare?) happened but good thing it wasn't pointed towards earth.

Solar prominences are often associated with coronal mass ejections, a hugely energetic explosion of light, solar material and energy from the Sun. If these ejections are directed toward Earth, they can disrupt technology reliant on satellites. The ejections also cause the northern lights.

However, in this instance, the coronal mass ejection was traveling away from us.

I would hate to be on a plane which got hit. I assume the FAA and like will warn all airlines. It will be mass chaos if we lose or had spotty internet.

It's important to understand the solar cycle because space weather caused by the sun -- eruptions like solar flares and coronal mass ejection events -- can impact the power grid, satellites, GPS, airlines, rockets and astronauts in space.

Last time it happened was 1859 with the "Carrington Effect" which caused havoc with the telegraphs (internet of its day).

https://www.history.com/news/a-perfe...rrington-event

Compared to today’s information superhighway, the telegraph system in 1859 may have been a mere dirt road, but the “Victorian Internet” was also a critical means of transmitting news, sending private messages and engaging in commerce. Telegraph operators in the United States had observed local interruptions due to thunderstorms and northern lights before, but they never experienced a global disturbance like the one-two punch they received in the waning days of summer in 1859.

[Brian Swartz]

Good video from a YT channel I enjoy on these things and the Carrington Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-WxNB2UvnY

But yeah, we don't want to be around if one of them aims towards earth. It would not be fun. Thankfully also it's rare.

[Edward64]

Looks like its going well.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60771210

The American space agency has achieved a major milestone in its preparation of the new James Webb Space Telescope.

Engineers say they have now managed to fully focus the $10bn observatory on a test star. The pin-sharp performance is even better than hoped, they add.

To get to this stage, all of Webb's mirrors had to be aligned to tiny fractions of the width of a human hair.

But the agency cautions that a lot of work still lies ahead before the telescope can be declared operational.

Lee Feinberg, the Nasa engineer who has led the development of Webb's optical elements, described the release of the first properly focused image as phenomenal.

"You not only see the star and the spikes from the diffraction of the star, but you see other stars in the field that are tightly focused, just like we expect, and all sorts of other interesting structure in the background," he told reporters.

"We've actually done very detailed analysis of the images we're getting, and, so far, what we're finding is that the performance is as good if not better than our most optimistic prediction."

[Brian Swartz]

Yep. I'm still watching the temps from time to time ... MIRI is steadily getting lower, currently in the mid-80s Kelvin. But all signs seem to point to alignment going exceptionally well, so as long as the final cooling stages go as well, there should be some exciting things happening second half of this year.

I've even mostly stopped being paranoid about it.

[Brian Swartz]

Temperature update; apparently they only turned on the MIRI cryo-cooler about a week ago. I thought that was supposed to happen earlier; apparently I was mistaken. Temp is dropping like a rock now (4+ Kelvin per day), which eliminates my last concern really.

We could be looking at some spectacular shots starting in about 6-8 weeks!

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Temperature update; apparently they only turned on the MIRI cryo-cooler about a week ago. I thought that was supposed to happen earlier; apparently I was mistaken. Temp is dropping like a rock now (4+ Kelvin per day), which eliminates my last concern really.

We could be looking at some spectacular shots starting in about 6-8 weeks!

It'll help us better understand the universe for sure. But will it be $10B worth? I'm betting yes.

[Brian Swartz]

MIRI recently reached it's target goal of an insanely cold 7K a few days ago. It's now below 6K. Apparently part of the delay that I didn't realize is that they had small heaters operating to slow it's cooling until a certain point, in order to ensure no ice buildup occurred. The more you know, the more you understand. Once they had everything running full, it dropped like crazy, almost 80K in 15 days.

The goal for the mirror temp isn't quite there yet - 36K, currently at 42+ and slowly dropping. But all appears to be well.

[NobodyHere]

James Webb telescope's MIRI instrument goes super-cold

[NobodyHere]

Uranus blasted a gas bubble 22,000 times bigger than Earth

That's one hell of a gas bubble!

[GrantDawg]

I am pretty sure my anus has out done that.

[Lathum]

Looks like that extension event asteroid is about to be announced


Astronomers Are About to Make a Massive Announcement About Something in The Milky Way

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Looks like that extension event asteroid is about to be announced


Astronomers Are About to Make a Massive Announcement About Something in The Milky Way

What's an "extension event"?


On second thought I withdraw the question.

[Lathum]

stupid sausage fingers

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Looks like that extension event asteroid is about to be announced

Astronomers Are About to Make a Massive Announcement About Something in The Milky Way

So the big, really big announcement is a black hole in the center of our galaxy? Big whoop. These scientists need to play more space 4x games.

It's like often in my job, we come up with something and then we need to ask ourselves "so what? how does this impact the employee population (good, bad, scale etc.) and how do we explain it to them".

These scientists need to do the same thing when trying to impress the non-scientists. Yawn. Come back when you find extraterrestrial life.

[Edward64]

I guess it's nice. I want to really be impressed but (and I'm sure it's just me) doesn't look much different from other Hubble pics I've seen?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/11/world...scn/index.html

The first glimpse of how the James Webb Space Telescope will change the way people see the universe has arrived.

President Joe Biden has released one of Webb's first images, and it's the deepest view of the universe ever captured.

The image shows SMACS 0723, where a massive group of galaxy clusters act as a magnifying glass for the objects behind them. Called gravitational lensing, this created Webb's first deep field view of incredibly old and distant, faint galaxies.

[Edward64]

Okay, a larger pic. I think each one of those are like our Milky Way galaxy.

Each one with their own Old Republic, New Republic, First Order etc.

[sterlingice]

I thought the context was important when they were talking about this during the presentation - this is a grain of sand at arm's length picture of the universe. That's insane to think about and so difficult to comprehend.

SI

[Edward64]

Okay, that’s impressive

[sterlingice]

Here's the exact quote from the release:

"This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length by someone on the ground," according to a NASA release.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/11/world...scn/index.html

It's what Bill Nelson said during the presentation.

It's also the oldest light we've ever seen before at 13 billion years old.

SI

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Okay, that’s impressive

Yeah, I think it needs to be put in the proper context. Once that's done, quite impressive

SI

[Thomkal]

Here's the same image from Hubble and the one today:


https://twitter.com/ianlauerastro/st...25603641790465

[PilotMan]

Completely mind blowing. So excited to see the new pics. I cannot wait.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I guess it's nice. I want to really be impressed but (and I'm sure it's just me) doesn't look much different from other Hubble pics I've seen?

It's not just you. I don't expect what James Webb shows us to be visually and obviously different from Hubble in most cases. The difference is going to be as noted that we are able to see objects further away, get more information than Hubble can in terms of the spectroscopy (atmospheric compositions), etc.

Originally Posted by Edward64

I think each one of those are like our Milky Way galaxy.

A number of them are actually probably larger.

[Edward64]

More pics from Webb.

https://apnews.com/article/nasa-jame...7357b19976eef3

The four additional photos released Tuesday included more cosmic beauty shots.

[Edward64]

FWIW I subscribe to Joe Scott, pretty entertaining guy. He did an episode that showing the Hubble vs Webb images and differences in detail. See starting at about 14:50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGK5...annel=JoeScott

[Edward64]

I'm sure there's a reason but I don't get (1) why 68GB SSD vs standard 64GB and (2) why 64-68GB, why not 128GB or 256GB. The additional weight is literally negligible.

The Webb Space Telescope’s Profound Data Challenges - IEEE Spectrum

Compared to Hubble, which is still active and generates 1 to 2 gigabytes of data daily, JWST can produce up to 57 GB each day
:
Data gathered from its scientific instruments, once collected, is stored within the spacecraft’s 68-GB solid-state drive (3 percent is reserved for engineering and telemetry data). Alex Hunter, also a flight systems engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, says that by the end of JWST’s 10-year mission life, they expect to be down to about 60 GB because of deep-space radiation and wear and tear.

[Edward64]

I kinda heard about it but really didn't know much until I watched YT Joe Scott describe it.

We're going back to the moon baby! (and we'll be doing a lot of cool things along the way including a space station around the moon and getting the commercial side involved).

Short blurb but encourage you to watch the YT video below if interested in more details.

Through its current Artemis program, NASA envisions sending astronauts to the lunar south pole by 2025 and eventually establishing a permanent presence on the Moon. The program is a result of the Trump administration's Space Policy Directive 1 and a March 26, 2019 speech by former Vice President Mike Pence directing NASA to reach the Moon by 2024.

Artemis is designed to land humans on the Moon quickly and focus on Mars as a long-term human spaceflight goal after that. The preliminary short-term plan involves using both commercial rockets and NASA's Space Launch System, the Orion crew capsule, and a commercial lunar landing system. A small space station in lunar orbit called the Gateway would serve future surface missions

https://youtu.be/MHMTq24rQeI

[sterlingice]

Artemis I is supposed to launch at the end of this month. It's been delayed a lot but it sounds like it's likely to go this time (finally?). It's unmanned but the rocket heads to the moon and then back ahead of the (theoretical) 2025 manned return to the Moon. Was at Johnson Space Center this week and they had a pretty big exhibit up about it and a go at Mars around 2040. Didn't realize we were getting that close already. Though, again, we'll see if that timeline gets moved as it has quite a bit in the past.

SI

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Edward64

We're going back to the moon baby! (and we'll be doing a lot of cool things along the way including a space station around the moon and getting the commercial side involved).

NASA is investing in crypto? Short-selling Gamestop?

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

NASA is investing in crypto? Short-selling Gamestop?

Not a bad idea to maybe create a crypto coin and/or NFT.

Get an increase in public support, free advertising etc.

[NobodyHere]

Finally the headline we've all been waiting for (or maybe just me):

NASA to send probe inside Uranus

[sterlingice]

Artemis I delayed for a little bit:
404 | NASA

SI

[Lathum]

Successful Impact! NASA’s DART Mission Hits Asteroid in Historic Planetary Defense Test