The James Webb Telescope Revolution The James Webb space telescope is proving to be a huge advance in astronomy. Not only are we able to see some objects we were not able to see before, we have even analyzed the atmosphere of distant exoplanets. I believe we have to change out thinking about the telescope and think of it as the first step in not only building super space telescopes to explore the heavens, but maybe some day in the future it will be credited with helping to find extraterrestrial life. As I had said previously, it was one of, if not the one most complicated device ever successfully launched. Hundreds of things had to go correctly after it was able to reach its destination which is so far away, we couldn’t reach it to fix it if anything went wrong. Pulleys pulled, on board computers carried out instructions, and different sections unfurled and all did so in a manner that was deemed incredible. If just one thing would have gone wrong, that could have been the end of the mission and a waste of billions of dollars and many years. I am sure our enemies were praying that we would look foolish. NASA has no intention to stop with the James Webb telescope. I am looking forward to some breakthroughs in telescope technology. The basic technology is the same as it has been for hundreds of years. What has improved is the grinding of the mirrors, the increases in mirror size, and the instruments which can be attached to them. Think about this, if you would have told someone two hundred years ago you could aim a telescope at a planet hundreds of light years away and analyze its atmosphere, they would have committed you. This is precisely what we are doing now. Someday, the telescope might be replaced by some sort of electronic device that will enable us to do even more. On the other hand, we might be able to send out much faster probes which will allow us to see much of the universe close up. If we can tame quantum entanglement, we might be able to use it in such a way we get instant travel. With all the scientists working on this concept right now, we might be able to achieve that in the next hundred to several hundred years. Yes, I know we won’t be here to see it, but you have to admit the idea is fascinating. One of the next large telescopes NASA is thinking about building is one with a very wide field. It is known as WFIRST and is said to have a field so wide it will be able to show the view at 100 times larger than Hubble. It is said the James Webb telescope also has a field of view 100 times greater than the Hubble. The difference is the Wide Field telescope will have the same size mirror as Hubble. It will be interesting to see where it is going to be positioned from. The telescope is the Nancy Grace Roman telescope which will operate in the infrared. Years ago, there were rumblings NASA was going to build a huge telescope on the moon. The idea was to fill a crater with swirling mercury and use that as a mirror. It was said by Emanno F. Borra, a physics professor that any liquid made to spin assumes a parabolic shape. We have found this to be true by creating them on earth and they don’t have to spin very fast. We do lose some reflectivity with mercury compared to a polished mirror. The mirror will reflect about 90 percent of the light, but a pool of spinning mercury will reflect about 75 percent of the light. There are other liquids which are more reflective however. It is said the compound Galinstan is more reflective and liquifies at about 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Can you image if it were practical to fill a mile in diameter crater on the moon with this stuff, and get it to slowly spin? What wonders would we see? Maybe we would actually be able to see the surface of a exoplanet. How will quantum computers affect the field of astronomy? Will artificial intelligence combined with them be able to give us accurate depictions of the surface of a planet which is many light years away? Could there be even more powerful computers coming down the road which will displace quantum computers? The reason quantum computers are so powerful is they give us a third option which is not only 0s and 1s, but 0s, 1s, and 0s and 1s at the same time. To clarify this, it is like saying we are turning switches on and off, but there is another option which is on and off at the same time. While we don’t see now how this could be improved with more choices, it might have something to do with dimensions, who knows? One has to wonder if some sort of electronic device could be developed in the future for collecting photons, which are bits of light, instead of a mirror and outperforming the mirror in this area. The mirror absorbs about 10 percent of the light and if we could figure out how to prevent this, our telescopes would be that much more powerful. A powerful quantum computer run by Artificial Intelligence might be able to figure out how to enhance this view and fill in any missing pieces. Unfortunately, this is far beyond our current technology today. The Webb telescope was so complex, so delayed, and so expensive it might be a long time before anything approaching or surpassing its size is launched again. China is proposing to build a space telescope with a 30 meter mirror. The mirror would be about 98 feet in diameter. Obviously, they are trying to outdo the Webb telescope which has a mirror of about 23 feet. The trick however is to be able to get it into a Lagrange point where it will seem stationary and to get it to perfectly furl open. If they don’t insert it into a Lagrange point, it just won’t be as useful as the Webb. The largest telescope on Earth so far is the European Southern Observatory which has a mirror with a diameter of 126 feet. It is an incredible monster scope. One point is there has never been rain recorded in the area where this telescope is. Even though the mirror is much larger than the Webb, the James Webb telescope can see further than any other telescope on earth.
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