Posted on Jan 12, 2022
LIVE! Mirror Movement InProgress! - James Webb Tracker! #NASA #WEBB
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Good Wednesday morning, my Brothers and Sisters from the Sunny skies of Southwest Florida, where the current temperature is a cool 63° but headed up to about 76° shortly after the noon hour...
The JWST is now 741,247 miles from Earth and has 157,461 miles (82.489%) to go to reach the Lagrange Point L2 to begin its orbit about that point, which is a point in space which has a balanced gravitational pull between the gravity of the Sun and the gravity of the Earth... A very stable point for JWST operation. The temperatures on both sides of the Sunshield are nearly perfect at this point and and the testing and calibrating of the 18 mirror segments is in process and going well... more...
This phase of testing and calibration includes the alignment of the JWST's 18 mirror segments into a perfect monolithic mirror... actuators behind each mirror enable the aligning, or Phasing of the telescopes 18 hexagonal shaped primary mirror segments into a single 6.5 meter mirror!
The mirror's actuators can move in steps that are a fraction of a wavelength of light, or about 1/10,000th the diameter of a human hair!!! In space, a star will be used as the light source to align the mirrors. Engineers will move each mirror and determine which image is coming from which mirror. Then, through a process called Wave Front Sensing and Control, the mirrors will be aligned and very finely focused. There is more to this than I have written here, but it gives you the idea of what is involved... It is NOT simple... The result of this alignment will yield the most powerful space telescope ever built by mankind!
Watch the live broadcast by NASA for a short while to get a feel for what is going on real time!
I hope you enjoy the updates...
Kerry
______________________________________________________________________________
The JWST is now 741,247 miles from Earth and has 157,461 miles (82.489%) to go to reach the Lagrange Point L2 to begin its orbit about that point, which is a point in space which has a balanced gravitational pull between the gravity of the Sun and the gravity of the Earth... A very stable point for JWST operation. The temperatures on both sides of the Sunshield are nearly perfect at this point and and the testing and calibrating of the 18 mirror segments is in process and going well... more...
This phase of testing and calibration includes the alignment of the JWST's 18 mirror segments into a perfect monolithic mirror... actuators behind each mirror enable the aligning, or Phasing of the telescopes 18 hexagonal shaped primary mirror segments into a single 6.5 meter mirror!
The mirror's actuators can move in steps that are a fraction of a wavelength of light, or about 1/10,000th the diameter of a human hair!!! In space, a star will be used as the light source to align the mirrors. Engineers will move each mirror and determine which image is coming from which mirror. Then, through a process called Wave Front Sensing and Control, the mirrors will be aligned and very finely focused. There is more to this than I have written here, but it gives you the idea of what is involved... It is NOT simple... The result of this alignment will yield the most powerful space telescope ever built by mankind!
Watch the live broadcast by NASA for a short while to get a feel for what is going on real time!
I hope you enjoy the updates...
Kerry
______________________________________________________________________________
NASA
Space
Astronomy
Physics
Science
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 3
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Excellent share brother Sgt (Join to see) , this will help add to our knowledge of the galaxy.
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Sgt (Join to see)
This is very true, SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth!!! We will learn more about our galaxy and our universe than ever before...
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Sgt (Join to see)
SSG William Jones - It can seem deep for many of us, but when one takes it a little at a time, it is not so obtuse... I try to present small pieces of what is happening to enlighten everyone I reach, so that they will have some fundamental understanding of what is involved... I am most pleased that you are following my posts on this very important scientific project...
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