Nearly Three Years Since Launch, Webb Is a Hit Among Astronomers (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0175421041
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/11/07/0041226/nearly-three-years-since-launch-webb-is-a-hit-among-astronomers
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/more-and-more-astronomers-are-eager-to-use-the-james-webb-space-telescope/
> The Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Webb on behalf of NASA and its international partners, said last week that it received 2,377 unique proposals from science teams seeking observing time on the observatory. The institute released a call for proposals earlier this year for the so-called "Cycle 4" series of observations with Webb. This volume of proposals represents around 78,000 hours of observing time with Webb, nine times more than the telescope's available capacity for scientific observations in this cycle. The previous observing cycle had a similar "oversubscription rate" but had less overall observing time available to the science community.
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> More than 600 scientists will review the proposals and select the most promising ones for time on Webb. The largest share of proposals would involve observing "high-redshift" galaxies among the first generation of galaxies that formed after the Big Bang. Galaxies this old and distant have their light stretched to longer wavelengths due to the expansion of the Universe. Research involving exoplanet atmospheres and stars and stellar populations were the second- and third-most popular science categories in this cycle. [...] It seems astronomers have no shortage of ideas about where to look. Maybe one day, new super heavy-lift rockets or advancements in in-space assembly will make it possible to deploy space telescopes even more sensitive than Webb. Until then, we can be thankful that Webb is performing well and has a good shot of far outliving its original five-year design life. Let's continue enjoying the show.
[1] https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/05/31/0131202/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-finds-most-distant-known-galaxy
[2] https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/01/12/1610258/nasas-webb-telescope-discovers-its-first-exoplanet
Five years? (Score:2)
> Until then, we can be thankful that Webb is performing well and has a good shot of far outliving its original five-year design life.
We can be thankful for a five-year shelf life? We design fucking smartphones to last longer than five years. For the money we spent on this, we better be able to rename it the James Webb Voyager Space Telescope in another 30 years.
It took five years to deploy the damn thing. After it was built. Sure as hell hope it outlasts the 20+ years it took to get here.
Re: (Score:3)
> hope it outlasts the 20+ years it took to get here.
Unlikely.
L2, unlike L3 and L4, is not stable.
JWST expends fuel to stay on station and move between aiming points.
The IR instruments are cooled with liquid helium, which slowly leaks away.
The fuel and helium limit the useful lifetime of the telescope.
The fuel can be conserved by carefully scheduling missions to minimize movement, which is an NP-hard problem isomorphic to solving the traveling salesman problem.
However (Score:2)
Funding will be cut by the incoming administration.
Theres probably something in Project 2025 about creation being less than 10,000 years ago so we don't want to be looking at stuff billions of light years away.
Next gen - Nancy Grace (Score:4, Informative)
The next major space telescope will be the [1]Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope [wikipedia.org], scheduled to launch in 2027.
Like JWST, it will be parked at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telescope