James Webb Space Telescope (Technical Post ONLY !)

Gallery link with descriptions and full resolution images as well:

webbtelescope.org

Image Resources

A developing gallery of images featuring astronomical observations and informative science content around the Webb telescope (JWST) mission.
webbtelescope.org webbtelescope.org
 
Since zero criticism is permitted on this particular subject/thread, as a engineering technician [and practicing astronomer] it would be useful if the collection, transmission and software interpretation of the data from the JWST could be laid out and explained.

NOTE. I actually met the chap who wrote the original imaging software for the hubble program. Clever guy and quite the philanthropist as it turned out for astrophotographers of the day..
 
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated its unprecedented ability to analyse the atmosphere of a planet more than 1,000 light-years away. With the combined forces of its 270-square-foot mirror, precision spectrographs, and sensitive detectors, Webb has – in a single observation – revealed the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations. The transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant WASP-96 b, made using Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, provides just a glimpse into the brilliant future of exoplanet research with Webb.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star.

The observation, which reveals the presence of specific gas molecules based on tiny decreases in the brightness of precise colors of light, is the most detailed of its kind to date, demonstrating Webb’s unprecedented ability to analyze atmospheres hundreds of light-years away.
Click to expand...
 
spartina said:
Since zero criticism is permitted on this particular subject/thread, as a engineering technician [and practicing astronomer] it would be useful if the collection, transmission and software interpretation of the data from the JWST could be laid out and explained.

NOTE. I actually met the chap who wrote the original imaging software for the hubble program. Clever guy and quite the philanthropist as it turned out for astrophotographers of the day..
Click to expand...

For the comms side, this article seems like a decent starting point: https://spectrum.ieee.org/james-webb-telescope-communications
 
JWST will be spending roughly a quarter of its time looking at exoplanets. So anyone want to throw their hat into the ring as to if it will find a planet with oxygen in its atmosphere.
 
Flyaway said:
JWST will be spending roughly a quarter of its time looking at exoplanets. So anyone want to throw their hat into the ring as to if it will find a planet with oxygen in its atmosphere.
Click to expand...

That is one of the things that I want to see happen during the course of JWSTs twenty year life, the discovery of oxygen and life on an earth like exoplanet.
 
spartina said:
Since zero criticism is permitted on this particular subject/thread, as a engineering technician [and practicing astronomer] it would be useful if the collection, transmission and software interpretation of the data from the JWST could be laid out and explained.

NOTE. I actually met the chap who wrote the original imaging software for the hubble program. Clever guy and quite the philanthropist as it turned out for astrophotographers of the day..
Click to expand...

Imaging pipeline for JWST:
https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-science-calibration-pipeline-overview

That site has the complete user manual for JWST, detailing the instruments and instrument modes, imaging pipeline etc.

Transmission is via the DSN. 2 downlink periods per day at 3.5 Mb/s. Data budget 28 GB/day.
 
The links between the NRO and the JWST.

“My hunch is that JWST was a descendant, so to speak, of a spy satellite program,” said Philip Horzempa, a former astronomy professor at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, who now writes about satellite history. While the NRO routinely classifies information about decades-old satellites, the similar looks of the SMT and the Webb telescope — as well as decades of sightings of spy satellites that deploy antennas even bigger than the 69.5 foot-wide sun shield on NASA’s observatory — have long intrigued sky-watchers.
In response to an inquiry on the connection from Grid this weekend, the NRO initially promised a statement and background information on the SMT, then said it was held up for security review.
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www.grid.news

Why NASA’s James Webb telescope and its galactic discoveries may owe something to spy satellites

Update: The National Reconnaissance Office affirmed this story on Sept. 14 in response to a Grid public records request. The story has been updated with the agency response as well as a comment from Brij Agrawal of the Naval Postgraduate School that also followed publication. While NASA’s...
www.grid.news www.grid.news
 
Flyaway said:
The links between the NRO and the JWST.

“My hunch is that JWST was a descendant, so to speak, of a spy satellite program,” said Philip Horzempa, a former astronomy professor at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, who now writes about satellite history. While the NRO routinely classifies information about decades-old satellites, the similar looks of the SMT and the Webb telescope — as well as decades of sightings of spy satellites that deploy antennas even bigger than the 69.5 foot-wide sun shield on NASA’s observatory — have long intrigued sky-watchers.
In response to an inquiry on the connection from Grid this weekend, the NRO initially promised a statement and background information on the SMT, then said it was held up for security review.
Click to expand...

www.grid.news

Why NASA’s James Webb telescope and its galactic discoveries may owe something to spy satellites

Update: The National Reconnaissance Office affirmed this story on Sept. 14 in response to a Grid public records request. The story has been updated with the agency response as well as a comment from Brij Agrawal of the Naval Postgraduate School that also followed publication. While NASA’s...
www.grid.news www.grid.news
Click to expand...

That was the same thing with Hubble back in the 1980s, so I am not surprised that JWST is descended from spy satellites as well.
 
I have a personal list of every interaction between NASA and NRO since 1962, when the space spooks agency was created. Well, now I have another item in that "collection". I will dug that list.

At some point of time or another, every single NRO optical spysat type - Key Hole 1 to Key Hole 11 - had a NASA connection. And the reverse is true: the influx of advanced NRO technology into NASA was seemingly at every level.

See here for a short list of their interactions. Should add JWST to it.
 
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Flyaway said:
JWST will be spending roughly a quarter of its time looking at exoplanets. So anyone want to throw their hat into the ring as to if it will find a planet with oxygen in its atmosphere.
Click to expand...
And then what? the rise of a revolutionary new religion?? because that will be as close to finding out the answer to the BIG question.

Still look on the bright side...

View: https://youtu.be/ogcQ7Z4bh5w
 
Article describing the telescope being handed over to NPS

Pawlikowski keynoted a series of briefings on the technical aspects of the telescope, whose six lightweight mirror segments each have more than 100 actuators for surface control as well as three fine and six coarse actuators to bring the segments into alignment after deployment; the system’s history of acquisition by NPS; and plans for its use in teaching and research prior to the unveiling.
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Two Remarkably Luminous Galaxy Candidates at z≈11−13 Revealed by JWST

he first few hundred Myrs at z>10 mark the last major uncharted epoch in the history of the Universe, where only a single galaxy (GNz11 at z≈11) is currently spectroscopically confirmed. Here we present a search for luminous z>10 galaxies with JWST/NIRCam photometry spanning ≈1−5μm and covering 49 arcmin2 from the public JWST Early Release Science programs (CEERS and GLASS). Our most secure candidates are two MUV≈−21 systems: GLASS-z13 and GLASS-z11. These galaxies display abrupt ≳2.5 mag breaks in their spectral energy distributions, consistent with complete absorption of flux bluewards of Lyman-α that is redshifted to z≈13 and z≈11. Lower redshift interlopers such as dusty quiescent galaxies with strong Balmer breaks would be comfortably detected at >5σ in multiple bands where instead we find no flux. From SED modeling we infer that these galaxies have already built up ∼109 solar masses in stars over the ≲300−400 Myrs after the Big Bang. The brightness of these sources enable morphological constraints. Tantalizingly, GLASS-z11 shows a clearly extended exponential light profile, potentially consistent with a disk galaxy of r50≈0.7 kpc. These sources, if confirmed, join GNz11 in defying number density forecasts for luminous galaxies based on Schechter UV luminosity functions, which require a survey area >10× larger than we have studied here to find such luminous sources at such high redshifts. They extend evidence from lower redshifts for little or no evolution in the bright end of the UV luminosity function into the cosmic dawn epoch, with implications for just how early these galaxies began forming. This, in turn, suggests that future deep JWST observations may identify relatively bright galaxies to much earlier epochs than might have been anticipated.

 
Has anyone else noticed the scaremongering way that the report on the micrometeoroid hit on the telescope has been reported. The way a number of news article have spun that report has been to suggest that the JWST is somehow so badly damaged that it is impaired from doing its job. At first I thought it was a one off but now I’ve seen more and more articles with the same spin.

This article actually looks at this phenomenon.

mashable.com

What NASA actually said about the space rock that hit the Webb telescope

It's not a calamity.
mashable.com mashable.com
 

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