With the days rapidly dwindling until New Horizons makes humanity’s first reconnaissance of Pluto, a stunning new video was released showing the mission’s planetary predecessors.
Paying homage to over 50 years of planetary exploration, the National Space Society’s video shows the groundbreaking missions which opened up the solar system to all of us back here on Earth.
Through the Pioneer, Mariner, and Voyager missions, the worlds of the solar system were no longer mysterious to scientists and astronomers on Earth. The years of the planet’s first reconnaissance and spacecraft are shown in a fitting tribute to New Horizon’s foundations.
Now, 53 years after our initial visits to other worlds, our exploration of the solar system’s major celestial bodies draws to a close. We’ve spent half a century broadening our cosmic horizons; what new horizons will be found at, and beyond, Pluto?
What you’re looking at are human beings assembling humanity’s most advanced space telescope to date. At this very moment, the James Webb Space Telescope (@NASAWebbTelescp) is being assembled. To keep up to date on its progress, you can visit NASA’s dedicated web page on the scope.
Here’s what you should know.
The James Webb Space Telescope (aka JWST or Webb) will be a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror, launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in October 2018, and will be the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. JWST will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System. Formerly known as the “Next Generation Space Telescope” (NGST); it was renamed in Sept. 2002 after a former NASA administrator, James Webb.
Several innovative technologies have been developed for JWST. These include a primary mirror made of 18 separate segments that unfold and adjust to shape after launch. The mirrors are made of ultra-lightweight beryllium. JWST’s biggest feature is a tennis court sized five-layer sunshield that attenuates heat from the Sun more than a million times. The telescope’s four instruments - cameras and spectrometers - have detectors that are able to record extremely faint signals. One instrument (NIRSpec) has programmable microshutters, which enable observation up to 100 objects simultaneously. JWST also has a cryocooler for cooling the mid-infrared detectors of another instrument (MIRI) to a very cold 7 degrees Kelvin so they can work.
Of the myriad of capabilities Webb will have over the now 25 year old Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the most fascinating aspects of the JWST will be all we expect to learn, along with discoveries it will enable of which we couldn’t possibly anticipate. To expand on this further, see the video ‘Beyond Hubble: The James Webb Space Telescope’ (below), courtesy of Coconut Science Laboratory:
Although there’s so much more to say about the JWST, I recommend visiting http://jwst.nasa.gov/ to browse the trove of resources available. And because @nasa prides itself on being a transparent and inclusive organization, everyone can view the past and present progress being made through the live web cams which provide fresh views every 60 seconds!
Share this with everyone! We are all crew members aboard this terrestrial spaceship, and although we all share the same window to the universe, not everyone has the influences around them to assist in helping refine their questions, and ultimately, change their perspective regarding their ‘place in space’. Every person you reach and inform about the incredible science that’s being done around our busy world, the immeasurable impact you could have on their life and the subsequent lives they influence. Engage and educate!
Why isn’t anybody on my dash, like, super pumped about the Orion launch this morning? This ship is built to go farther than any manned ship ever built before. This is the ship that takes humans to deep space. This is the ship that takes humans to Mars. It had its test launch this morning and its kind of a big deal because this is the ship that’s gonna bring in a new era of space travel. Welcome to the Mars age.
Whether and when NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, humankind’s most distant object, broke through to interstellar space, the space between stars, has been a thorny issue. For the last year, claims have surfaced every few months that Voyager 1 has “left our solar system”.
Voyager 1 is exploring an even more unfamiliar place than our Earth’s sea floors — a place more than 11 billion miles (17 billion kilometers) away from our sun. It has been sending back so much unexpected data that the science team has been grappling with the question of how to explain all the information. None of the handful of models the Voyager team uses as blueprints have accounted for the observations about the transition between our heliosphere and the interstellar medium in detail. The team has known it might take months, or longer, to understand the data fully and draw their conclusions.
Since the 1960s, most scientists have defined our solar system as going out to the Oort Cloud, where the comets that swing by our sun on long timescales originate. That area is where the gravity of other stars begins to dominate that of the sun. It will take about 300 years for Voyager 1 to reach the inner edge of the Oort Cloud and possibly about 30,000 years to fly beyond it. Informally, of course, “solar system” typically means the planetary neighborhood around our sun. Because of this ambiguity, the Voyager team has lately favored talking about interstellar space, which is specifically the space between each star’s realm of plasma influence.
Voyager 1, which is working with a finite power supply, has enough electrical power to keep operating the fields and particles science instruments through at least 2020, which will mark 43 years of continual operation. At that point, mission managers will have to start turning off these instruments one by one to conserve power, with the last one turning off around 2025.
The spacecraft will continue sending engineering data for a few more years after the last science instrument is turned off, but after that it will be sailing on as a silent ambassador. In about 40,000 years, it will be closer to the star AC +79 3888 than our own sun. (AC +79 3888 is traveling toward us faster than we are traveling towards it, so while Alpha Centauri is the next closest star now, it won’t be in 40,000 years.) And for the rest of time, Voyager 1 will continue orbiting around the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, with our sun but a tiny point of light among many.
I’ve been talking a bit about space shanties lately but this is hands down my favorite space shanty of all time like I legit wanna tear up listening to it
I’m pretty sure it has to be because if it was 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen like it is on Earth they wouldn’t be able to breathe because it’s not pressurized as much. At least thats how they do it with space suits. I’m not sure if they pressurize the shuttles enough for it to be the 20/80 comp.
Ted from Chapel Hill What is the composition and pressure of the atmosphere inside the space station?
Well the pressure is just the same as here on the ground, 14.7 psi. And the composition is just the same as air. We have, inside the air revitalization systems, what they call a major constituent analyzer that looks at the composition of the air, and then we have the capability to adjust it to make sure it stays just as same as it is here on the ground. Nitrogen, oxygen and all the other stuff.
