Tomorrow Dec 25th 2021, is a very big day! James Webb Scope is headed out.

[DonH56]

This is sooo cool... I remember being on the floor at NASA watching them do final assembly on the Hubble fix while the astronauts for the mission were training at the other end of the room.

Aside: Today (June 30, 2022) is officially Asteroid Day. Armageddon, anyone?

 

[JSmith]

JWST Live;

JSmith

 

[Ken1951]

In times such as these I wish I was still teaching. Working with gifted identified MS students that I could show these things to and set their imaginations running. Bound to be loads of great videos like those on Sixty Symbols to come.

 

[_thelaughingman]

In times such as these I wish I was still teaching. Working with gifted identified MS students that I could show these things to and set their imaginations running. Bound to be loads of great videos like those on Sixty Symbols to come.

I bet many of your students look back fondly on what you have taught them.

My almost four year old is fascinated with space and stars, he picked out a backyard astronomy book recently to sit and read. He also loves his Hubble images book, he wants to be an astronaut since he was dressed up as one for his first birthday. Hoping that he will pursue it as he grows up

 

[BDWoody]

Quite a teaser...

Countdown to the Webb Telescope's First Images - NASA

Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor Provides a Serendipitous Preview

www.nasa.gov

 

[Ken1951]

Quite a teaser...

Countdown to the Webb Telescope's First Images - NASA

Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor Provides a Serendipitous Preview

www.nasa.gov

O.M.G. Just so freaking amazing!

http://www.deepskyvideos.com/videos/other/10_000.html

This is a great intro to this kind of image. Loads of other fantastic stuff on Deep Sky Videos as well.

 

[dc655321]

First Light target list is up.
Gonna be so cool!!

 

[xaviescacs]

This thread reminds me of an anecdote. In the first day in an astrophysics course, just after saying hello, the teacher said: "There are people that believes that astrophysics is fun and amusing... that is not so." Even though that was in 3rd year of physics degree, he wanted to be sure that nobody joined his course to watch pictures of galaxies and comment the last news on telescope observations or mars robots. The course was indeed not very fun.

 

[NTK]

Sneak preview today at 5 PM US Eastern time.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1546290906046816256

 

[dc655321]

This thread reminds me of an anecdote. In the first day in an astrophysics course, just after saying hello, the teacher said: "There are people that believes that astrophysics is fun and amusing... that is not so." Even though that was in 3rd year of physics degree, he wanted to be sure that nobody joined his course to watch pictures of galaxies and comment the last news on telescope observations or mars robots. The course was indeed not very fun.

I was 2 courses shy of getting a minor degree in astronomy in Uni - nothing squashes dreams and romanticism like tensor calculus.

 

[xaviescacs]

nothing squashes dreams and romanticism like tensor calculus.

xDDD Now that you mention tensors, the astrophysics teacher was the same I had in fluid dynamics, which is completely based on tensors. He didn't had to mention that fluid dynamics isn't fun xD Maths are often a barrier to many physics subjects. I didn't do QFT because I had enough of Hilbert spaces... everybody has a limit xD

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Quite a teaser...

Countdown to the Webb Telescope's First Images - NASA

Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor Provides a Serendipitous Preview

www.nasa.gov

I look at that image and I'm just filled with wonder and amazement. Every one of those little blobs of light contains hundreds of millions of stars surrounded by hundreds of millions of planets. The titanic scale of the universe is just incomprehensible. My personal feeling is that there's intelligent life in that image too...maybe dozens of examples of it. I imagine there's so many amazing things going on out there that we'll probably never even know about...Interstellar wars. Dyson spheres...maybe even crazier shit than that. I'm hoping there's some very beguiling and titillating findings coming from JWST in coming years.

 

[dc655321]

xDDD Now that you mention tensors, the astrophysics teacher was the same I had in fluid dynamics, which is completely based on tensors. He didn't had to mention that fluid dynamics isn't fun xD Maths are often a barrier to many physics subjects. I didn't do QFT because I had enough of Hilbert spaces... everybody has a limit xD

I could not get past what I thought was the near irrelevance of tensor calculus to my interest in radio astronomy.

Youthful idiocy.

 

[Zaireeka]

I look at that image and I'm just filled with wonder and amazement. Every one of those little blobs of light contains hundreds of millions of stars surrounded by hundreds of millions of planets. The titanic scale of the universe is just incomprehensible. My personal feeling is that there's intelligent life in that image too...maybe dozens of examples of it. I imagine there's so many amazing things going on out there that we'll probably never even know about...Interstellar wars. Dyson spheres...maybe even crazier shit than that. I'm hoping there's some very beguiling and titillating findings coming from JWST in coming years.

You gotta read Liu Cixin trilogy, mind blown for ever!

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

You gotta read Liu Cixin trilogy, mind blown for ever!

I intend to yep!

 

[xaviescacs]

Youthful idiocy.

I just finished my postdoc last year...

edx is my friend when I want to learn something

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-astrophysics

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-continuum-physics

 

[phoenixdogfan]

It's ready!

 

[_thelaughingman]

Half hour to go till we get the first bit of goodies!!

 

[amirm]

My personal feeling is that there's intelligent life in that image too..

What boggles the mind is that what we see now is thousands of years old! So if there is civilization, we are looking at their distant past, not current.

 

[Doodski]