The next most exciting endeavor for humanity after Hubble & Gaia Telescopes... is the James Webb Space Telescope!

in #space7 years ago

The next most exciting endeavor for humanity after Hubble & Gaia Telescopes... is the:

James Webb Space Telescope!

On the left is the hubble mirror, on the right is the new configuration for JWST
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18 Hexagonal Mirrors

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is planned to be the Hubble Space Telescope successor. The JWST's primary mirror is composed of 18 hexagonal mirror segments for a combined mirror size of 6.5-meter-diameter (21 ft 4 in).

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A large sunshield will keep JWST's mirror and four science instruments below 50 Kelvin (−220 °C; −370 °F). You can see the sunshield in gray at the bottom of this to-scale model.

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Scheduled to launch in 2019 it will circle near the Earth–Sun L2 lagrangian point offering unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. A Lagrange point is a unique location in space where gravitational forces of two bodies equal that of a smaller third body. This allows for a unique point of equilibrium to "park" crafts to make better observations.

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Meanwhile, we can check "Gaia" Telescope Data being visualized in 3D with this amazing open-source software.
https://zah.uni-heidelberg.de/gaia/outreach/gaiasky/
"Gaia Sky is a real-time, 3D, astronomy visualisation software that runs on Windows, Linux and macOS. It is developed in the framework of ESA's Gaia mission to chart about 1 billion stars of our Galaxy in the Gaia group of the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (ZAH, Universität Heidelberg)."

...Now, more about JWST mirrors

Mirrors

"[Ball Aerospace] designed and built the advanced optical technology and lightweight mirror system that will enable Webb to look 13.5 billion years back in time." - http://www.ball.com/aerospace/programs/jwst

These mirrors are incredible stuff: They're coated in a layer of ultra-thin (100 nanometers) gold by Quantum Coating Incorporated. (flight spare) Photo by Drew Noel.

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Before gold is applied the Beryllium mirrors are polished & undergo Cryogenic Testing ensuring they're smooth & reflective as possible.

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Scheduled to launch in 2019

JWST will be launched on the reliable Ariane 5 rocket, it has a record of 80 successful consecutive launches as of as of June 28, 2017.

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You can read more about JWST over here: https://www.space.com/21925-james-webb-space-telescope-jwst.html - See you next time! —Mark

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Hi, I found some acronyms/abbreviations in this post. This is how they expand:

AcronymExplanation
ESAEuropean Space Agency
JWSTJames Webb infra-red Space Telescope
L2Paywalled section of the NasaSpaceFlight forum,Lagrange Point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point) 2 of a two-body system, beyond the smaller body ([Sixty Symbols

That's neat!