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James Webb - Blog Posts
River/Spider + textposts because literally every one i came across fit
One day river has a dream. He's old. To his mind's eye, he looks like his grandfather. He's in a care facility exactly like the one he dropped David off at - except River isn't alone. There's another old man there, with hair wisped over a bald spot and gold half-rimmed glasses perched on a nose sculpted with unusual perfection, like someone's paid good money to erase any signs that it was ever broken. The man carries a cherry wood cane, although he rarely needs it, and he has a permanently fussy look stamped upon him, with his pristine coat and his bespoke house slippers.
In the evenings, the two of them retire to one of their rooms. Together, they sit at a small table barely fit to hold a tray, and they play cards. The card game they play, the only card game they ever play, is the only game they know that gives neither one a clear advantage. It's also the only card game they both hate. They both know this, although neither one wants to be the one that admits it first. That's the real game they're playing, and the first to crack loses.
If River squints, he can spot on the other man's temple, poorly hidden behind the thinning hair, the crackling, spidery web of an old scar.
The voice that speaks hasn't aged a day.
"Tell me, River. Did you ever become the best?"
River startles awake with tears on his face. He doesn't know why.
He's older than that voice now by a few years, and it's always going to stay that way.
(And he's still at Slough House.)
RIVER CARTWRIGHT & JAMES 'SPIDER' WEBB "Personal Space" SLOW HORSES
The James Webb Space Telescope: Art + Science Continuing to Inspire
The James Webb Space Telescope – our next infrared space observatory – will not only change what we know, but also how we think about the night sky and our place in the cosmos. This epic mission to travel back in time to look back at the first stars and galaxies has inspired artists from around the world to create art inspired by the mission.
Image Credit: Anri Demchenko
It’s been exactly two years since the opening of the first James Webb Space Telescope Art + Science exhibit at the NASA Goddard Visitor Center. The exhibit was full of pieces created by artists who had the special opportunity to visit Goddard and view the telescope in person in late 2016.
Online Submission Image Credit: Tina Saramaga
Since the success of the event and exhibit, the Webb project has asked its followers to share any art they have created that was inspired by the mission. They have received over 125 submissions and counting!
Image Credit: Enrico Novelli
Online Submission Image Credit: Unni Isaksen
A selection of these submissions will be on display at NASA Goddard’s Visitor Center from now until at least the end of April 2019. The artists represented in this exhibit come not just from around the country, but from around the world, showing how art and science together can bring a love of space down to Earth.
More information about each piece in the exhibit can be found in our web gallery. Want to participate and share your own art? Tag your original art, inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope, on Twitter or Instagram with #JWSTArt, or email us through our website! For more info and rules, see: http://nasa.gov/jwstart.
Webb is the work of hands and minds from across the planet. We’re leading this international project with our partners from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and we’re all looking forward to its launch in 2021. Once in space, Webb will solve mysteries of our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.
Learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope HERE, or follow the mission on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
5 Out-of-This World Technologies Developed for Our Webb Space Telescope
Our James Webb Space Telescope is the most ambitious and complex space science observatory ever built. It 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.
In order to carry out such a daring mission, many innovative and powerful new technologies were developed specifically to enable Webb to achieve its primary mission.
Here are 5 technologies that were developed to help Webb push the boundaries of space exploration and discovery:
1. Microshutters
Microshutters are basically tiny windows with shutters that each measure 100 by 200 microns, or about the size of a bundle of only a few human hairs.
The microshutter device will record the spectra of light from distant objects (spectroscopy is simply the science of measuring the intensity of light at different wavelengths. The graphical representations of these measurements are called spectra.)
Other spectroscopic instruments have flown in space before but none have had the capability to enable high-resolution observation of up to 100 objects simultaneously, which means much more scientific investigating can get done in less time.
Read more about how the microshutters work HERE.
2. The Backplane
Webb's backplane is the large structure that holds and supports the big hexagonal mirrors of the telescope, you can think of it as the telescope’s “spine”. The backplane has an important job as it must carry not only the 6.5 m (over 21 foot) diameter primary mirror plus other telescope optics, but also the entire module of scientific instruments. It also needs to be essentially motionless while the mirrors move to see far into deep space. All told, the backplane carries more than 2400kg (2.5 tons) of hardware.
This structure is also designed to provide unprecedented thermal stability performance at temperatures colder than -400°F (-240°C). At these temperatures, the backplane was engineered to be steady down to 32 nanometers, which is 1/10,000 the diameter of a human hair!
Read more about the backplane HERE.
3. The Mirrors
One of the Webb Space Telescope's science goals is to look back through time to when galaxies were first forming. Webb will do this by observing galaxies that are very distant, at over 13 billion light years away from us. To see such far-off and faint objects, Webb needs a large mirror.
Webb's scientists and engineers determined that a primary mirror 6.5 meters across is what was needed to measure the light from these distant galaxies. Building a mirror this large is challenging, even for use on the ground. Plus, a mirror this large has never been launched into space before!
If the Hubble Space Telescope's 2.4-meter mirror were scaled to be large enough for Webb, it would be too heavy to launch into orbit. The Webb team had to find new ways to build the mirror so that it would be light enough - only 1/10 of the mass of Hubble's mirror per unit area - yet very strong.
Read more about how we designed and created Webb’s unique mirrors HERE.
4. Wavefront Sensing and Control
Wavefront sensing and control is a technical term used to describe the subsystem that was required to sense and correct any errors in the telescope’s optics. This is especially necessary because all 18 segments have to work together as a single giant mirror.
The work performed on the telescope optics resulted in a NASA tech spinoff for diagnosing eye conditions and accurate mapping of the eye. This spinoff supports research in cataracts, keratoconus (an eye condition that causes reduced vision), and eye movement – and improvements in the LASIK procedure.
Read more about the tech spinoff HERE.
5. Sunshield and Sunshield Coating
Webb’s primary science comes from infrared light, which is essentially heat energy. To detect the extremely faint heat signals of astronomical objects that are incredibly far away, the telescope itself has to be very cold and stable. This means we not only have to protect Webb from external sources of light and heat (like the Sun and the Earth), but we also have to make all the telescope elements very cold so they don't emit their own heat energy that could swamp the sensitive instruments. The temperature also must be kept constant so that materials aren't shrinking and expanding, which would throw off the precise alignment of the optics.
Each of the five layers of the sunshield is incredibly thin. Despite the thin layers, they will keep the cold side of the telescope at around -400°F (-240°C), while the Sun-facing side will be 185°F (85°C). This means you could actually freeze nitrogen on the cold side (not just liquify it), and almost boil water on the hot side. The sunshield gives the telescope the equivalent protection of a sunscreen with SPF 1 million!
Read more about Webb’s incredible sunshield HERE.
Learn more about the Webb Space Telescope and other complex technologies that have been created for the first time by visiting THIS page.
For the latest updates and news on the Webb Space Telescope, follow the mission on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.