Using a Secondary Mirror to Focus the Light Into the Third Mirror

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There were over 400 single points of failure there e gos telescoper. Of one of these things went wrong, the whole mission would be a sham. The first few images from the telescope are not really real images; they're just testing to make sure the cameras work. We talked about low earth orbit last time,. It was this area in for people that didn't listen to the last episode,Low earth orbit is an area in orbit that is not moving with the earth, that is moving faster than the earth. And effectively what this is is, its a bunch of layers of really fancy plastic that are keeping the main thing from getting hot.

This week we have another longform episode! David got a little obsessed with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) a few months ago and spent hours and hours researching and talking to experts so that he can try to explain it here on the podcast for Marques and Andrew. This one is a little dense but if you're even remotely interested in the mysteries of our universe this one is for you. David explains why the JWST is such a big deal and what we hope to discover once it begins sending back pictures.

Special thanks to:

Paul Geithner

Dr. Jonathan McDowell

Dr. Peter Gao

Tim Dodd

Sources:

How James Webb Orbits Nothing

Webb vs Hubble (NASA)

Fine Guidance Sensor (NASA)

JWST FAQ (NASA)

Where is Webb? (NASA)

Webb Orbit (NASA)