Finally. It's About F**king Time. (WEBB: 25 Dec 2021)

[mvgulik]

Its a infrared telescope that is intended to capture the oldest and faintest possible signals.

(The moon as location would be no good for this either btw.)

[shubla]

Its a infrared telescope that is intended to capture the oldest and faintest possible signals.

What are they going to tell us? That there were some flashes long time ago?

[vatas]

It sounds ridiculous but Universe is (or has been) expanding faster than light, which means that signals from very early days of the entire universe are still reaching us.

[mvgulik]

Expansion happens everywhere. At small local scales its insignificant (solar system, galaxies), but with increasing distance the effect just keeps grows. And at some given distance it will just surpass the speed of light for related points. (This would be true for any expansion rate. Universe ... or infinite elastic band).

"Expansion of the universe, the increase of the distance between two distant parts of the universe with time"

The existence of early days signals are more related to the size of the Universe at that point (also infinite as far as we can tell) than with its expansion. Expansion just slows them down (red shifted), and limits how far we can look back - theoretical freeing them for points moving away from each-other at the speed of light (same process as looking at something that's falling into a black hole. You will never ever be able to see it cross the event horizon).

[mvgulik]

“30 days of terror”: The James Webb telescope’s troubles are just getting started
Turns out, the launch is the easy part.

Related video.


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... "If you where a bumblebee, at the distance of the moon away from the telescoop, we wood be able to pick up the heat that you send out." ...
... It has "actuators capable of nudging each of the gold hexagons in 10-nanometer increments, one ten-thousandth the width of a hair." ...
... JWST: "Just Wonderful Space Telescope." ...

[mvgulik]

Newest launch target: 24 Dec (Christmas Eve. lol) 12:20 GMT.

[fallout]

People think landing on the moon 60 years ago was easy enough that we missed out on building a moon base?

[MadNomad]

our place is on earth
it's just a pile of scrap metal

[MagicManICT]

our place is on earth

If God didn't want us to explore other planets, He wouldn't have made them in the heavens for us to wonder about. That's what I believe.

[Zentetsuken]

lol imagine if the rocket just exploded in the atmosphere on launch