JWST is still testing, still calibrating, now into the finest most sensitive instruments, the spectrometers.
If you're geeky about these things, the optics divisions, spectrographic sensitivity, accurately aligning the wave fronts of target frequencies, are real rabbit holes to enjoy. That whole machine is amazing and the spectroscopy is better than a lot of advanced ground scopes.
Cycle 1 observations are still scheduled to be taken mid-July with the release of NASA's last batch of commissioning test images on July 12.
The new run will be 4 years of contunuous proton smashing at 13.6 TeV.
That's a lot. It is twice the old run's power.
Higgs and higgs-like particles, supersymmetry particles, dark matter particles and so much more. Even, maybe, some mini-black holes that will form an interdimensional portal that will eat a large portion of reality before they collapse back into the background.
So, over the next 4 years, if you wake up and see that reality has stopped and everything is wrong then turn over, snooze a few minutes, and look again. If there is only void and you don't exist anymore then it was the LHC. If reality is still all screwed up and getting worse then it's your meds.
So, by the time the first images from JWST are posted, spacetime may be bent out of shape? Great!!!
Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
Major hype over the JWST “First Light” release on Jul 12. Everyone is so excited. Too excited.
NASA media/PR handlers have created the impression we all will be mind-blown by this first release. The scientific community already knows what to expect and, indeed, they are already dancing with delight just from the hints coming from the JWST imaging team. This data release involves the deep spectrographics JWST was built for. This is first light, the JWST in all its power. This is the astronomers wet dream and that is what they are about to get.
But the public at large are in for an enormous let down. We’re going to get 5 +- pretty pictures of known structures already in the books but, as comparisons to Hubble, as sharp and as clear as your phone will let you see. That is all.
There is not going to be any great cosmic reveal of Universal secrets. I fear the overhype will sour JWSTs taste in the public mind. They are looking for $10 billion of something magical to happen and I fear the next few public data releases will not meet the hyped-up expectations. I keep trying to tell folks not to be so excited but the tube/toothpaste analogy rules here.
If you’re an astronomer then have the paper bag ready to breathe in to stop hyperventilating when you see just how detailed the raw data really is. Every photon this thing collects is detailed, photographed, mug shot with a laundry list of details like frequency, amplitude, momentum, polarity, social security number and mother’s maiden name. The big hints from NASA are that the spectrographic data will be well beyond expectations.
But for the rest of us, yes, we are about to see some really nice pretty pictures, but that’s it. Put down your pen. We will not be re-writing cosmology. But do clean your glasses and get the HD+ screen ready on your PC.
I just watched the newest episode of PBS's Nova about JWST. It's worth a watch and the first images are quite spectacular.
Spectroscopy will provide the most important data, but I think the images are going to blow our socks off just like the Hubble images have.
I am so happy I survived to see this!
Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
The sun has just let loose one of the largest CMEs ever recorded. (coronal mass ejection, spewing out gas, particles, energy). If you are familiar with a Carrington Event - Wikipedia then you know how dangerous these can be for our techno society. Burn up our satellites in space and kill our computers.
This one was super huge. But good news. It was on the other side of the sun pointed away from us so we only get the residuals.
But, more good news, Venus is now on that dark side of the sun. Venus was pretty much the target. Amun-Ra was pissed at her and threw a big old bolt of CME at her. But, better luck yet, Solar Orbiter, one of our newest sophisticated sun watching satellites on its way into solar orbit, is in the midsts of a gravity assist maneuver at Venus.
The data from this thing is going to be huge ... if you're an engineer. Knowledge from this event will cause a whole new generation of protection technologies for satellites and power grids.
Ok, so not earth shattering news. But it is interesting, if you're interested in this kind of stuff. More so though it is a positive. Like a little ribbon tucked into our future society to counterbalance the coming consuming inferno that has already scheduled our far future extinction.
We may be doomed but we can at least be upbeat about what's left. Ok, bad example.
Do they have any clue what would happen if the Sun sent that thing this way? If it fried all of the i-phones it would be time to buy Apple Stock.
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox
“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).
If it fried all of the i-phones it would be time to buy Apple Stock.
If it fried all the I-phones there won't be an Apple or a stock market
Edited by Tanypteryx, .
Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
That is what the data will tell us. If it was us Amun-Ra shot at what damage would that thing, multiple times Carrington, do to us? The analysis is being done. What everyone agrees with, however, is that the jewish lasers the republican's fear will be considerably curtailed for more than just a few months.
But, specifically, our satellites would be fried but that's ok because our land-line comm systems will also be fried. Probably.
As long as you're not using any metallic thread you could probably still string two dixie cups together across the house.
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