Space News

[Fid]

Kinda fun, https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210802.html though why extremely high red shift objects should appear blue.

[Fid]

May have been posted before but the short video (3D of M1) is worth a watch.

https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/news/HeartofTheCrab/

[Fid]

Thought this was pretty, yeah it's manufactured but still.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210815.html

[Pyrrho]

https://i.imgur.com/e0efj0E.png

[Anaxagoras]

$10bn James Webb Space Telescope unpacked in Kourou

One step closer.

Hey, at least the boat it was shipped on wasn’t attacked by pirates or Kaiju.

December 18th is the day, if everything goes according to plan.

[Anaxagoras]

NASA recently launched a new space probe called Lucy, which will visit the asteroids near Jupiter called "Trojans" among others.

I've seen two good videos on the topic. One is from Astrum, another from Anton Petrov. Both excellent YouTube channels focused on astronomy.





Unfortunately, there appears to be a problem already, which may be solvable, but that isn't clear yet: One of the solar panels did not fully deploy apparently. It got stuck for some reason. He said they are going to try closing it and opening it again.

It does raise my level of concern about the JWST though, which has even more moving parts that need to deploy properly for the mission to work. This probe just needed to unfold its solar panels, but it seems to be having trouble doing that.

Here's a third video that delves into the solar panel problem a little bit more:

[Doctor X]

I blame Yoko Ono.

– J.D.

[robinson]

https://twitter.com/ppathole/status/145 ... 61026?s=21

[robinson]

https://twitter.com/ppathole/status/146 ... 31108?s=21

[Pyrrho]

https://i.imgur.com/e0efj0E.png

https://i.imgur.com/OwVGSxK.jpg

[Anaxagoras]

NASA Sets Coverage, Invites Public to View Webb Telescope Launch (NASA)

NASA will provide coverage of prelaunch, launch, and postlaunch activities for the James Webb Space Telescope, the world’s largest and most powerful space science telescope.

Webb is targeted to launch at 7:20 a.m. EST Friday, Dec. 24, on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.

Live launch coverage in English will begin at 6 a.m. on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. The public can also watch live on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Daily Motion. NASA also will offer a launch broadcast in Spanish beginning at 6:30 a.m. on the agency’s website and Spanish-language social media accounts. NASA will hold a prelaunch media briefing at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 21, and a postlaunch news conference approximately 30 minutes after the live launch broadcast ends on Friday, Dec. 24.

Merry Xmas! :D

[Anaxagoras]

LIvestream of the launch.

Launch is about 20 minutes away.

[Anaxagoras]

Everything went pretty well so far!

The telescope is now on its own. The rocket at least did its job perfectly.

[Anaxagoras]

10,000 miles from earth and counting!

[Doctor X]

10,000 miles from earth [Sic – Ed.] and counting!

*Sound of Frogs and Other Failed People Who Cannot Reach the Moon Raging in Impotence*

– J.D.

[Grammatron]

Everything went pretty well so far!

The telescope is now on its own. The rocket at least did its job perfectly.

The only good news of the last 10 years.

Wish Rob Lister was here.

[Fid]

Never fear, we have months if not years for this thing to fail miserably.
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space- ... ent-begins
Keep in mind though when as a lad I heard President Kennedy declare "We gonna' go to the moon biotches."
My thought was "yeah right."

[Anaxagoras]

[Fid]

"shake it's self back and forth to deploy the heat shield" Welp, ya'll are the engineers. (Didn't work for Galileo's high gain)

[Anaxagoras]

If you want to see where the telescope is right now and what steps in the process have been completed so far.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunc ... sWebb.html

[Doctor X]

I am more worried about the asteroids, Anax.

– J. "OPA!" D.

[robinson]

I want them to make the data available to everyone

What it collects

Not just a few people

[ceptimus]

I am more worried about the asteroids.

There are some pretty powerful and effective ointments you can get for those.

[Doctor X]

I am more worried about the asteroids.

There are some pretty powerful and effective ointments you can get for those.

https://media1.giphy.com/media/JmNx7jCG ... /giphy.gif

– J. "Not Making a 'Uranus Joke' Even Though Yours is Vast and Infested with Klingons" D.

P.S. HONK!

[Fid]

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space- ... r-deployed

Not to worry we still have thousands of fail points.

[Ben Trovado]

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space- ... r-deployed

Not to worry we still have thousands of fail points.

Old NASA guy: Well, we usually have the main system, 2 back-ups, and then a manual fail-safe that-

New NASA guy: (finishes bottle of Johnny Walker). Shut up, gramps. When has anything with a list of 137 different precise, mechanical actions that need to take place in an exact sequence EVER gone wrong?!

[Fid]

The final mirror deployment. I predict utter doom and gloom in real time of course. This has been my standard opinion of all space missions.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa ... -unfolding

[Doctor X]

So long as when it reflects the sunlight it scorches something unimportant like Baltimore.

– J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

https://xkcd.com/2564/

[Doctor X]

I think someone is wrong on the internet. . . .

– J.D.

[Fid]

So long as when it reflects the sunlight it scorches something unimportant like Baltimore.

– J.D.

Tralfamadore has a Baltimore too? Dang, small universe eh?

[Fid]

Funny comment regarding the collimation of the primary in the pressy today. Something along the lines of "first light is gonna look like 18 prima donna mirrors all thinking they are the most important."