JWST doesn't measure in the wavelength range of the CMB, so I'm not sure what you heard but it doesn't sound right. Here are three things that might be related:

JWST needed about half a year from launch to the first science images. That time was spent unfolding the telescope (~1 month) and calibrating it and its instruments.

JWST can only observe targets in a ring around the Sun/Earth direction, in the worst case you need to wait almost half a year until your target is in view.

[Planck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_(spacecraft)) needed ~9 month to make a full-sky map of the CMB in 2009-2010 based on the way it scanned the sky and again the issue that you cannot measure too close to the Sun.

Could you expand a bit more on it being “geometrically impossible”? As in, what makes it so? Is it just how the math works out, that standing still or escaping such bent spacetime would require infinite amounts of energy?

No, you need the weak interaction (EWK) and the strong interaction (QCD) in addition to QED.

Try Deep Down Things by Schumm for a description of particle physics for the non scientist

No, they're not the same. The (111) plane in FCC and the (1000) plane in HCP are equivalent but if you look down the [111] and [1000] directions you will see that the stacking sequence is different. This is usually described as ABCABC (FCC) vs ABAB (HCP). This is, for instance, why you can have FCC <--> HCP phase transformations produced solely by stacking faults.

FCC in the (111) planar direction is the same as HCP. We just call it something else but effectively it’s the same right?

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(A) there is no thermally induced HCP phase in iron at atmospheric pressure, in pure iron the HCP epsilon phase is solely a high pressure phase, (B) I don't see what the temperature vs pressure effect size has to do with any of this - the assertion was that in the core you'd have the same crystal structure as you would on the surface and it is observably not true.

13 GPa of pressure is ridiculous compared to the 600 or so degrees Celsius required to get the same phase transformation. Temperature will always have a more pronounced effect than pressure in thermodynamics.

Except we do know, both from seismic wave studies and from high pressure experiments above ground, that iron has a high pressure phase transformation around 13 GPa (body centered cubic to hexagonal close packed).

Thank you.

Light can be deflected by a large angle if it passes close enough to a black hole. In principle, light from a star on one side of the sky could indeed be deflected toward us by a black hole on the other side of the sky. See for example this simulated picture and notice how the galactic center on the right-hand side of the picture also appears to the left of the black hole, within the Einstein ring.

However, there is no concern that this effect could lead to seeing stars in the wrong places. As you can see in the picture, the black hole makes a distorted image of the whole sky. If we were able to resolve an individual star in that image, we would certainly also resolve the whole distorted image of the sky and infer that a black hole is there.

btw thank you everyone for the serious answers.

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JWST sees in infrared, not microwave, so while it can “see further into the past” it can’t directly measure the CMB, which is microwaves.

Definitely, and that is exactly the case in weak gravitational lensing, where the effect is small enough to not significantly distort the image. Also, this is exactly how this effect was first measured by Eddington!

Usually, what would happen is that we first know there is a massive object in the way to a far away galaxy or cluster, and then by doing some (mostly statistical) analysis, would learn about the details of the massive object through its effect on the observed galaxy.

The wiki page has some nice explanations.

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There are some very speculative far future scifi ideas for mining the sun, it's called starlifting.

This is not the sort of thing you'd use to solve a helium shortage, though! It'd be like mining ice from Pluto to chill your drink.

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I mean, you can build things out of wood, and as long as the wood doesn't rot that represents stored carbon. But you can't solve climate change just with wooden buildings, if that's what you mean.

How do they even figure out to use eggshells and hooves?!

Dehydration synthesis and hydrolysis break down of muscle fibers uses and produces water. We aren’t perfectly efficient and need the extra water. Additionally there quite a bit of waste produced that need water to transport it out. Ions like sodium, calcium, and potassium are also moving quite a bit and can dehydrate if you are pushing yourself.