Who is exited about the Webb Telescope (JWST)?

Hubble is dead. Long live JWST

I am very excited to see what the Webb Telescope has to show us. The telescope has the potential to answer questions that some of us have always wondered.
What is the nature of Dark Matter?
How did Galaxies evolve to their current state?
What is the shape of the Universe?

The telescope will orbit 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth. This will allow us to see much much further than Hubble did. Hubble orbited at an altitude of 569 km (353 miles). Much of the light and thin atmosphere of the earth held back Hubble from its deep space vision.

In my opinion the greatest picture from Hubble was the Hubble Deep Field Image. The closest galaxies in the image are 2.5 billion light years away, the furthest being about 10.5 billion light years away.
With the JWTS we will be able to see so much further away and so much further in the past.

2011 is the launch date and it seems so far away. After that our way of thinking of the Universe will change. We will learn so much. This will be a revolution in understanding the Universe. I hope the mission is a complete success.



www.jwst.nasa.gov...

A very exciting and ambitious project, especially getting such a large mirror into space and keep it cool and in perfect geometrical shape will be a work of art.

Very high expectations for the things the Webb telescope might allow us to see...

Also I am excited about more "down to earth" plans of the Australian to build telescopes on Antarctica...

www.abc.net.au...


[edit on 10-3-2005 by Countermeasures]

They BETTER get it right 'cause ya cant send a shuttle mission to fix the mirror this time!

I would of thought there would be more excited people on ATS.

What if our fist images from the telescope disproves much of what we believe in now?
This telescope will teach us so much. We will be going back in time 12 billion years. We will be "Visiting a Time When Galaxies Were Young".

it sounds like an exciteing project. i just hope it works as well as advertized.

the hubble was so supper hyped that with all the probems it has suffered most will question how effective this new generation scope will be.

possible problems:
with it being so far out will it be able to be repaired?
what about things like micro meteors, how will it be able to deal with them wouldn't hits cause damage that might not be able to be repaired due to distance?
any damage will decrease the effectiveness of viewing objects ie lens damage holed mirrors.
will it actualy work.
how long will it be able to be used before it becomes space junk?

i understand that this sounds negative but look at all the repairs hubbl has needed. personaly i would think that a manned observatory would be a better idea. someone would be there to controll for special missions and to effect some minor repairs. with propper stores even farely bad damage would be able to be repaired in a expediant manor. as well being manned you might be able to say close it up if it was in danger of being damaged. it would also be expandible when more advanced tech becomes available.

we could also use it to form the nuclias for a space station along with it that could also be used for other reserch programs. not to mention it could eventualy be used as a jumping off point for space exploration. i would also go so far as to recomend the possibility of useing the international space station as a space dock to build a "true" spacecraft. after all there is no need for aerodynamics in space. what is stopping us from building a "shuttle" to transport personell as well as supplies from the international space station to further space stations, including a manned observitory.