Nasa unveils Hubble's successor
The US space agency Nasa has unveiled a model of a space telescope that scientists say will be able to see to the farthest reaches of the Universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is intended to replace the ageing Hubble telescope.
Officials said the JWST - named after a former Nasa administrator - was on course for launch in June 2013.
The full-scale model is being displayed outside the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in the US capital, Washington DC.
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Yaay! I can't wait for Nasa to launch this. It's our window into the past, into the birth of our universe.
One of my friends pointed out that it costs as much as the age of the earth in years. Nice coincidence for something cosmic
1 comment:
I sure hope the new one isn't beset by design problems the way Hubble was.. I was reading the wiki page, and an error of the order of (lambda/20) in the mirror's curvature caused catastrophic spherical aberration effects! And the error occurred because when the Engineer in charge tested it, the main measuring instrument reported it as OK, but two auxiliary instruments showed the error. The guy ignored the two auxiliary measurements, assuming there was some error in the measurement! If I ever get to teach spherical aberration or experiment design, the Hubble telescope will be on the top of my example list :-)
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