It's a shame you can't find (or you remain unwilling to find) enough hope in yourself to condemn the antinatalists based on the 'hope springs eternal,' example the James Webb project exemplifies.

information-gathering tiny probes. — universeness

that's the only kind of payload, as far as interstellar travel is concerned. You're never going to get carbon-based lifeforms to another star system, it's strictly sci-fi. (In fact, I think it's the sublimated longing for the Heaven we no longer believe in.)

It's a shame you can't find (or you remain unwilling to find) enough hope in yourself to condemn the antinatalists based on the 'hope springs eternal,' example the James Webb project exemplifies. — universeness

So it is.

that's the only kind of payload, as far as interstellar travel is concerned. You're never going to get carbon-based lifeforms to another star system, it's strictly sci-fi. — Wayfarer

Sure we can. Time is vast in quantity. Even a simple idea like building a space station transit system may take us a million years but that million years will pass anyway and transhumanism means we don't have to remain purely carbon-based. Sci-fi often eventually becomes sci-fact. There are plenty of examples of that from the past so why not in the future.

Don't agree. I'm an adherent of 'spaceship Earth' theory - that we have the only spaceship we're ever going to get, capable of supporting billions of people for a very long while, but it's dangerously over-heating and resource-depleted. Every last bit of energy and ingenuity has to be focused on that, otherwise in a million years Earth will be only a prospect for some clever alien paleontologist (or pathologist.)

Most passerines hop, but others, such as larks, pipits, starlings, and meadowlarks, typically stride. Within the family Corvidae, jays hop whereas crows stride. Diverse species, including robins, ravens, and blackbirds, both hop and stride. — Stanford

:snicker:

spaceship Earth — Wayfarer

:up:

We must figure out the secrets of gravity propulsion - that's the only force that's found in abundance in outer space. Can we focus it (gravity "waves", LIGO) or can we select which gravity well we want our spaceships to respond to? Gravity, unfortunately, is weak at large distances? Maybe we can amplify the signal like how radio telescopes do that to weak radio signals (we may need a gravity "antenna"). :snicker:

How the James Webb deep field images reminded me the divide between science and art is artificial

For comparison, here is Hubble's image of the same galaxy M74 in Pisces
The two pictures show somewhat different views and need to be digitally overlapped for an even more spectacular image if that is possible.
https://esahubble.org/images/heic0719a/

Gyroscopes in space (Mar 19, 2016; 1m:18s)

↑ Demonstrating somewhat counter-intuitive gyroscope in zero gravity.

Wikipedia » Spacecraft bus (James Webb Space Telescope) » Gyroscopes
NASA » General Questions about Webb
NASA » Technical FAQ on a variety of mission issues, aspects and capabilities.

How frequently will James Webb be releasing images? I know that a new one came out, concerning some purple-ish looking galaxy.

But since the initial release of these batches of images, I haven't seen many more. I can't seem to find a date for such image releases. Anybody know about this?

Those who report being star-struck/in awe of the JWST images have, in my humble opinion, missed the point of this project by precisely 93 billion light-years! :rofl:

Something hadta go wrong! :groan:

I'm surprised there aren't more frequent micrometeor strikes on satellites and space craft given that the (inner) Solar System is a veritable debris field.

Something hadta go wrong! :groan: — Agent Smith

They could be parked in a convenient but busy location. There's a lot of tiny debris that gets caught and swirls about in those gravitational low spots.

The furthest object ever seen had been GN-z11 for a long time, but that record had been broken last April or so, finding something at z=13.7 after review of data through several other telescopes.

JWST has now taken the crown, finding something sexily named "CEERS-93316" with a redshift of z=16.6 ±0.1

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.12356.pdf

About the hit to the mirror:

I'm surprised there aren't more frequent micrometeor strikes on satellites and space craft — 180 Proof

Strikes are actually quite common, and returning spacecraft (not even up there that long) are sometimes found with small holes. It was the size of the JWST strike that seemed to be very improbable.

There's a lot of tiny debris that gets caught and swirls about in those gravitational low spots. — magritte

Anything caught in that low spot would be moving very slowly, else it would not be in that low spot. This object was not caught there, nor is the spot particularly attractive to random objects. It could have happened anywhere.

Micrometeroids! Like viruses, itty-bitty things that can do lotsa damage! I guess this is the small but terrible era!

We all have our little problems. — Mr. Hyde (Van Helsing)

Anything caught in that low spot would be moving very slowly, else it would not be in that low spot. This object was not caught there, nor is the spot particularly attractive to random objects. It could have happened anywhere. — noAxioms

Relatively speaking, how slow is slow and how fast is fast?

Did we jinx the JWST mission? :snicker:

Relatively speaking, how slow is slow and how fast is fast? — magritte

Slow is not even zero.
Nothing is stable at L2, so nothing accumulates there. JWST, once its fuel runs out, will eventually drift away. So the thing that hit it isn't part of the collection that gathers there since there is no such collection.

I read that it requires about 15-100 (depending on your calculations) m/sec/year of delta V to maintain its position there. That's one of the primary reasons for the limit of around 11 years for the JWST lifetime. It cannot be refueled or refurbished like Hubble can.

Nothing is stable at L2, so nothing accumulates there. — noAxioms

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

So Lagrange points aren't like regions in a stream for example where the flow of water (gravity) "slows down", allowing sediments to settle down/accumulate?

Nothing is stable at L2 — noAxioms

Ah thanks, I was confusing the gravitational hillocks at L1-L3 with the vales at L4-L5.

Meanwhile, in Australia, there's this image of a supernova remnant...

:starstruck:

So shiny and radiant :sparkle: :100:

It's just a really, really big mushroom. Keep your distance.

JWST’s “Shrodinger’s Galaxy Candidate” Has Astronomers Very Puzzled
CEERS-1749 is either the earliest and most distant galaxy ever seen by a long way, or an imposter looking curiously far more distant than it really is.https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.02794
The data suggests two potential locations for the CEERS-1749

Rohan Naidu ~~~ It isn’t always the excitement, sunshine, and rainbows often perpetuated through the media. Challenging current knowledge takes bravery and the collective hard work of dozens, if not hundreds, of passionate scientists. All options must be examined for the truth to be revealed."