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yawya t1_ixm940j wrote

what do you mean "fully operational again", did something happen?

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fcain t1_ixm9zps wrote

Replying to yawya (#650,064)

One of the modes of its MIRI instrument was experiencing excess friction so NASA took it offline. They've figured out a workaround and brought it back online.

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canadave_nyc t1_ixmmluu wrote

Just to be clear, this image is heavily processed by a grad student who studies planetary atmospheres....scaled 2x, colours added, etc. This is not an original unprocessed image from JWST.

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CrudelyAnimated t1_ixmpxuo wrote

I keep reminding myself that the reason we don’t see grains of sand on Titan is that the JWST was made to see truly, mind-bogglingly enormous things far away. It’s still easier to see a mountain ten miles away than a grain of sand at ten feet.

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deathhead_68 t1_ixmwjb7 wrote

Witness the power of this fully operational telescope

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great9 t1_ixnie2l wrote

this is bad, my samsung makes better photos than this. no autofocus on that 11 billion telescope? i want my money back

−11

Strict-Kaleidoscope2 t1_ixnse2d wrote

For a telescope that can see the farthest into the universe, you'd except it to take intense close up shots of relatively close objects. Especially in our solar system.

−2

phenomduck t1_ixny5ra wrote

Replying to Strict-Kaleidoscope2 (#656,053)

It's moving relatively fast compared to what it's designed to view. As far as I understand the main way these super powered telescopes work is by focusing on a singular point over time to get as much data as possible. The closer something is, the less space it has to travel to move a degree across your vision.

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ghostpanther218 t1_ixo0a4i wrote

Titan is an very intresting place, it's the one of only 4 terrestial bodies in our solar system with weather patterns and an atmosphere and rain. The rain and atmosphere there is made up of organic chemicals, so it's not too dissimilar to Earth during the Archaen era, which makes it a great place for researching how organic molecules can eventually become living cells.

TLDR, I look forwards to the Dragonfly mission.

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phenomduck t1_ixo99eg wrote

Replying to daddywookie (#657,009)

It's also important to remember that the solar system is very large compared to the planets and moons. Titan is only 5150km across, but 1.2 billion km away. To scale, it's not actually much larger than the farthest known galaxies. Luminosity is whole other thing, which I have no knowledge about.

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Eder_Cheddar t1_ixoazpm wrote

Looks grainy and blurry.

Are we sure that's not a balloon?

−2

ImproperJon t1_ixodd5i wrote

Something something fully operational... something something dark side...

0

Congozilla t1_ixp3b8h wrote

I'm surprised it is so blurry. Before it went up, I heard some NASA guy saying it will be so powerful that if there's agriculture happening on far away planets, we would be able to see that from JWST. So far, I haven't seen much real difference between JWST and Hubble with my eyes. And, I'm not sure anymore what other people are seeing as they gaze art photos like this one. What is such a big, good, new, deal about this thing?

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the6thReplicant t1_ixqk8qp wrote

Replying to phenomduck (#656,673)

But this has nothing to do with the question.

Moons and planets have a far smaller size to distant ratio than galaxies.

A galaxy may be a billion light years away but it’s 100,00 light years across. As something in our solar system my be a billion kms away but only thousands of kilometers across.

So just because it’s closer doesn’t mean it’s more resolvable.

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phenomduck t1_ixqt1yj wrote

Replying to the6thReplicant (#667,481)

I made a second comment where I addressed that. The JWST is designed to look for galaxies over 13 billion years old. GN-z11 is only estimated to be 4000 light years. It's actually a pretty similar size to distance scale as Titan is from the Earth. The amount of infrared light from the subject is also relevant.

−1

Hyphen_Potamus_7 t1_ixszmyr wrote

Replying to canadave_nyc (#651,737)

There are 3 or more stages at of image processing to create a final scientific image for JWST’s infrared cameras. The “unprocessed” images are literally uncorrected for effects like detector sensitivity/artifacts/cosmic rays/dead pixels/saturated pixels/read noise/etc etc etc etc. And even then they are still just raw arrays of flux per unit area with absolutely no intrinsic instructions on how to scale those values to brightness in an actual visual image. There no such thing as an “unprocessed” image in astronomy or photography digital or analog that somehow shows a more honest or objective depiction of its subject.

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Hyphen_Potamus_7 t1_ixt05o2 wrote

Replying to phenomduck (#656,673)

Its motion has absolutely nothing to do with the sharpness. JWST has actually incredibly fast and efficient cameras relatively speaking. Titan isn’t moving particularly much within the exposure time you need to get an image at all.

1