Potentially on the 22 the JWST will be launched. It’s supposed to be able to better see infrared light and possibly pick up on some of the first stars. Any one excited for any particular things that may show up? Think it will better help read out missing info?
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It should let us see much more of the heavens. Very exciting. They mentioned it in that space forum at the cathedral I posted.
Here’s the latest from NASA confirming the launch date of 12/22/2021 for the Webb Telescope.
And you probably heard about this: on Nov 24 NASA launched DART which is a test to see if we can redirect an asteroid. As is the case with Omicron, it’s best to get out ahead of these things!
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Nothing Earth shattering. It can’t shed any light whatsoever on any of the big questions.
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I’ve not actually heard of that. I barely follow anything cosmic outside of lovecraftian horror xd.
I was wanting to dedicate this winter to studying constellations, stars , and getting more familiar with the sky as perceived by a naked eye at night but it seems I’ll probably mostly spend this winter focusing on career related skills. So thinking of getting some books on using excel to generate various estimate focused spreadsheets and tracking job management and focus more time on my GC so I can move above current obstacles with permits. But I enjoy building science and carpentry and started listening to a podcast on lumber that’s really good.
So I’m a not moving forward with “space” stuff as much.
But I’ll still spend at least an hour a week or every other week on it.
But I’m waiting to see what’s all revealed with the oldest stars and if any planets* ( though I’m cool with any thing about plants it may turn up as well xd ) exhibit something neat.
Do you mean “planets”?
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Some exciting things highlighted in this video:
From the video:
#1 - exoplanet atmospheres - possible detection of life on distant planets?
#2 - shed light on planet and star formation
#3 - high redshift measurements of the first stars and galaxies of the universe
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My particular hope is that it makes it up there intact, because I doubt we will see another telescope on top of Mauna Kea in my lifetime.
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The launch should be available on YouTube.
.# 1 it isn’t big enough by a country mile. And even if it were, it will not detect life. Oxygen above trace is no longer proof. And it won’t detect any other biosignature or artificial pollutant. It may well detect xenobiosignatures, but we wouldn’t know.
The only possible detection of life is when somebody else’s space junk drifts by. Once in a million years at best. Call it a billion. And it would have to drift real close. Call it a trillion. So, there can be no threat to fundamentalist religion. Ever.
Call me an optimist, but I’m hoping for a fortune in gold doubloons. (Big points to anyone who knows that pop culture reference.)
Yes, there are multiple ways to make an oxygen-rich atmosphere without life, but it depends on what else you see in the spectra. It sounds to me like you are saying, “eh too hard, will never observe it.” I suppose you are free to wallow in such pessimism but the telescope will allow us to measure such things in greater detail than before.
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Nothing pessimistic about it. Just intellectually, rationally honest. Without woo we can never detect life outside the solar system. And there’s nowt here either. I wish there were. On Europa, Jupiter. They don’t have the chemico-physical gradients of the Terran Hadean. We need either telescopic or radio woo, or other woo ‘physics’ to go and look. Wake me up from the grave when we’ve got some woo. Or a piece of alien space junk tumbles by. Not in our species’ lifetime.
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