The Webb Telescope

@bunnyknight said
@jimm619
Hopefully Elon Musk will be able to keep up with Webby by building actual hardware to get us to all those distant planets and stars, and so far he seems to be our best chance of pulling this off. And if we don't strive to reach those distant places, then what's the point of just staring at them --- it would be like staring at a huge table full of food without ever tasting it.

... it would be like staring at a huge table full of food without ever tasting it.

@wildgrass said

... it would be like staring at a huge table full of food without ever tasting it.

We are looking at a museum of artifacts that existed before the Earth did, and probably no longer exist now. A window of time (and space of course) we've never seen before. The absence of a physical connection doesn't do much in my mind to diminish the artifacts. It's quite humbling.

@bunnyknight said
Of course observing all these cosmic artifacts is great, but going there would be a thousand times greater. Especially if Earth becomes uninhabitable or too crowded.

@liljo said


So yeah, actually "going there" (a place that can sustain life) wouldn't be just 1000 times better. It would simply be unmeasurably better. But we have to find it first.

@bunnyknight said
My idea was to point my spaceship towards a random direction and leisurely cruise for 99 Billion years until I bump into something worth landing on while staying busy playing chess and eating pizza.

But your idea is even better and I think I will borrow it. Thanx for the tip.

@Liljo

You know that stadium thing where a bunch of people have to turn their cards in sync?

It would be cool and humbling if the Webb Telescope captured an image that said, "We knew this would happen."

😉

Looks like Webby is doing well. The latest test images of deep space are vastly superior to anything from previous telescopes.

I can't help being star-struck knowing that we're already getting stellar performance from this baby.

Even better (or worse), the Webb Telescope captures an image that says, "It wasn't us."

For a full published list of things the Webb will be used for in its first cycle (year) of use, check this out!

https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go

@Liljo
Intensive list! Here is one I would like to see:
Gravitational lensing effects our solar system as well as getting images from stars and galaxies billions of light years away.
How it works here at home is the famous small arc second deflection predicted by Einstein and seen around the year 1910 or so photographically means a distant light source gets a focal line starting around 55 billion miles from the sun so for instance Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky has light grazing the sun and that focal line goes on roughly the distance between Sirius and Sol, which is about 8 ly away, so there is a focal line also about 8 ly long, this was the result of my own work which I would gladly go over if you wish, but take that as a given then the line between Sirius and Sol continuing into space with a spike of concentrated light from Sirius maybe hits some distant asteroid, comet, planet but at extreme distance, let's say there is some rogue planet a half ly from Sol and the light from Sirius maybe hits that body and it would not be there for long but if a scope like Webb was aimed at the area of the sky where the invisible radiation flies by and if nothing is being illuminated by that spike of light, nothing will be seen but if it hits something there will be a return based on the reflectivity of the body briefly illuminated.
I imagine an Earth bound scope could be used also because the gain of the focus line can be as much as 110 DB, free gain but a narrow shaft of light.

I see that as a possibility for seeing bodies that would randomly run into that beam but also when we get to the point where we can send crafts to that 60 odd billion miles, or say 100 odd billion Kilometers, if we have constructed a giant thin mylar mirror of some kind that shaft of light can be a freebie propulsion, assuming the light goes somewhere we want to explore as long as you stay in the beam it turns out the actual energy of said beam actually goes UP the further away the craft follows that beam so maybe it can get to a reasonable percentage of light speed.
I have not done any analysis whether there is some star we could visit like that but there are beams from every star, which is an awesome view if we could visualize it, thousands of light spikes coming from those stars so like Alpha Centauri about 4 LY from Sol would produce a 4 light year long spike of free energy and a possible destination for a craft using mirrors.
And the same for any of the rest of at least the nearby stars.
If I get off my ass and see what such beams run into if anything or if they maybe get close to a desired destination, say you want to go to Alpha Centauri and there happens to be a light spike from some nearby star on the other side of the sun in line with AC, it could be a freebie propulsion.
Anyway, that's my story and I am sticking to it.
I posted my work to my son in law who is a real physicist and he was duly impressed.

@sonhouse said
@Liljo
Intensive list! Here is one I would like to see:
Gravitational lensing effects our solar system as well as getting images from stars and galaxies billions of light years away.
How it works here at home is the famous small arc second deflection predicted by Einstein and seen around the year 1910 or so photographically means a distant light source gets a focal line s ...[text shortened]... ticking to it.
I posted my work to my son in law who is a real physicist and he was duly impressed.

@bunnyknight
No, sorry, I worked intensively on gravitational lensing as it appears to our solar system.

Einstein predicted and was borne out over 100 years ago that light or anything else skimming by the surface of the sun will be bent a bit, the number is 1.75 arc seconds of bending and if you visualize a laser beam coming from space skimming the surface of the sun and you have one on one side of the sun and another on the opposite side of the sun, the two beams will converge a good distance away from the sun, in this case about 60 billion miles from the sun or 100 or so Kilometers away.
That is the basis of gravitational lensing.

It means that light coming from a star, I mentioned Sirius, a close star and bright, there will be light skimming the sun and some of that light will impinge near the surface of the sun. So what that means is a good portion of that light will come to a focus at that distance I mentioned. This is established science for over 100 years.
I just ran with that idea and found out as you examine the light coming from Sirius a bit further from the surface will focus further out from the sun, where I used one radius distance as the light skimming close to the surface of the sun and TWO radius altitude above the sun will have a focus 4 times the original number, say now at 400 odd billion kilometers and proportionally so for light between those numbers, so there will be a line of light focused for light between those two radius numbers so for that particular set of radius numbers, there will be a shaft of light between 100 and 400 billion kilometers long on the other side of the sun from Sirius.
I did an analysis of following that light in my mind's eye and found that light shaft of concentrated energy will go from the first number, say 100 billion kilometers for first focus to the distance between the stars in this case 8 light years which is how far away Sirius is from Sol.
That means there is a free area in space that if you had a telescope or a spacecraft with huge mirrors, you get free energy to be used how you want, as an instrument to measure the light and other forms of radiation besides light, say neutrinos, they also get focused coming from Sirius so that can be used to suss out science stuff about Sirius or if you have a big mirror you could use it as a solar sail for free propulsion.
And that line of focused energy is eight light years long and poops out 8 light years from Sol but there is a permanent shaft of focused energy going away from Sol and that is not just for Sirius but for every star we can see making its OWN shaft of focused energy so light from say Alpha Centauri has its own shaft following the path from AC past the sun continuing for its number of light years separating AC from Sol in this case a shaft of focused energy about 4 light years long so if you happened to have some kind of solar sail in that beam you get free propulsion traveling away from Sol AND Alpha Centauri.

Does that make it clear at all?

The effect is due to the bending of spacetime around any mass and astronomers recently were able to find a single star, normally totally invisible but focused by an interceding galaxy to get that light now visible in Hubble so they were able to see the light from a star more than 13 BILLION light years from us, totally impossible otherwise unless you had a mirror the size of the entire solar system aimed at it.
My work just centered on what happens to light coming from stars at a reasonable distance from us and that is what I figured out, and now some astronomers have figured the same about light skimming by OUR sun but I did my work some 20 years ago.

@sonhouse said
@bunnyknight
No, sorry, I worked intensively on gravitational lensing as it appears to our solar system.

Einstein predicted and was borne out over 100 years ago that light or anything else skimming by the surface of the sun will be bent a bit, the number is 1.75 arc seconds of bending and if you visualize a laser beam coming from space skimming the surface of the sun and ...[text shortened]... tronomers have figured the same about light skimming by OUR sun but I did my work some 20 years ago.

@liljo said
For a full published list of things the Webb will be used for in its first cycle (year) of use, check this out!

https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go

@bunnyknight
The main thing about that idea is the energy is free. A space laser would have to have terawatts of power over an extended period of time and concentrated enough to provide propulsion. My guess is the cost would be overwhelming, many trillions of dollars to get that much energy. A way to do that however, if you happen to have such a device, if you can get it to the first focal line, say 60 billion miles or 100 billion Km away from the sun and then aim the beam, shaped to be a very sharp conical beam, skimming the sun then that energy could be used for propulsion, not sure how far out that would concentrate though.

Of course even using light from another star for propulsion you need to have a destination already in mind that that beam of light would go in the right direction.