For the professional (or former professional) astronomers among us, I will make my somewhat amused observation that what people are most paying attention to is not really the distinguishing features of JWST.<p>People seem most impressed by the apparent increase in resolution of the images, which is not from a certain point of view the hardest thing to do . HST might have done that if its instruments had been of different pixel size or imaging array size / focal length. Ok, the much larger mirror <i>is</i> an achievement. But anyway, the resolution of the images is often not what really is the limiting factor for photometric observations. Yes it is sharper/higher resolution, but that wasn't the key selling point.<p>The new thing is observations in the IR, which is somewhat a technical footnote in many gushing announcements of these images (or some discussion here too). And the general public knows little about that detail's importance, especially since the images are stylized / colored anyway to look just like RGB images that we are so familiar with. But everyone can easily appreciate a sharper image.<p>Anyway, still a momentous achievement. And thank god we have a scientific field where stunning images was enough to get the public to support a $10B project.<p>**<p>Edit to add: I did not mean to detract from or diminish anyone's appreciation of the images and accomplishment at whatever level they are enjoyed. And of course many here are technically knowledgeable about the IR aspect. I just write to point out that for the most headline-grabbing images and newspaper writers, the sharpness of the images over the actual IR frontier is what grabs the attention.
Here's a backyard telescope versus Webb: <a href="https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1546941832700932096" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/154694183270093209...</a><p>More comparisons on Twitter, some zoomed in:<p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/Batsuto_/status/1546899241880240128" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Batsuto_/status/1546899241880240128</a><p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/Batsuto_/status/1546900387931766784" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Batsuto_/status/1546900387931766784</a><p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/JBWillcox/status/1546881033597075457" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/JBWillcox/status/1546881033597075457</a><p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/jason4short/status/1546626672488632321" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/jason4short/status/1546626672488632321</a><p>I'm not a physicist, so I've only recently learned about redshift. Hubble's deep field images were very dark red/orange because further objects appear redder (into infrared) before they disappear to the observer. Webb's sensors are more red/infrared-sensitive than Hubble's, so along with extremely fine, super-cooled optics using exotic materials to align and capture every single photon, its red sensitivity allows Webb to peer deeper, further, and dimmer than we've ever been able to before.<p>And I've read that the "spikes" coming off the brighter stars are generally from stars in our own galaxy and they're not lens flares. They're caused by the edges of the telescope. Hubble's stars would have 4 spikes in a cross; Webb has 6 in a snowflake because of the shape of Webb's mirrors having 6 sides. Or something like that.
Question for anyone who happens to be an expert: Is there any way to quantify how much better Webb is independently of the amount of time used to take the exposures? Like, could Hubble achieve the same quality of images as Webb if it was given 100x (or whatever) more time exposure?<p>I'm trying to understand how much the improvement is "speed of convergence" vs. "quality of asymptotic result". (Though... is that even a valid way of trying to understand things?)
Downvote me to hell, but as a person who has zero understanding of what differentiates Hubble from Webb, the pictures alone just aren't doing it for me. I was excited to see something completely new given 30 years and 10 billion dollars and instead I feel like I'm seeing what looks like an enterprise upgrade and feel slightly disappointed.<p>What am I missing?
I'm actually most looking forward to seeing a picture of our planets. I wonder what kind of resolution we'll get of Jupiter and Mars in particular.<p>Also curious about what the closest stars to our solar system would look like. Of course it also makes me wonder what would we be able to see given a 100x increase in aperture. Like for example if we could send up something extremely large on Starship. Would we be able to image planets in our local group? Exciting!
I read at some point that a piece of dust hit the telescope and potentially damaged it. I'm guessing that it turned out not to be a big deal or maybe they were able to work around it? Does anyone have any insight? The fact that they're releasing good pictures and not mentioning it seems like a good sign to me.<p>Searching for this stuff is kind of hard (information overload), so I'm wondering if anyone here has more up to date info.
A question to the experts here:
What will be the most exciting things to be explored within the next months? What insight could come out of it, which open questions could be answered?
Hints to life on other planets by observing specific spectrums of specific ones? Could certain open questions about the early universe be decided? Or something else?
Aesthetically, I like the Hubble images better, they are more painterly and colorful. However there is no doubt that the JWST contains way more information and is exponentially more valuable.
Will Webb ever be used to image our own planets?<p>What happens when it's pointed at Mars?<p>Ah found answer here<p><a href="https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/57492/can-james-webb-take-pictures-of-our-solar-system-in-what-ways-will-they-differ" rel="nofollow">https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/57492/can-james-we...</a>
Strange, when I compare the two images of Stephan's Quintet [1], it appears much more "progressed" in the new WEBB image [2]. But that should be impossible.<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stephan%27s_Quintet_Hubble_2009.full_denoise.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stephan%27s_Quintet_Hubbl...</a>
[2]: <a href="https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/img/Stephans_Quintent_Webb.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/img/Stephans...</a>
Hmm, for some reason I prefer Hubble's image of Stephan's Quintet over JWST's. Though, that is purely from an aesthetic perspective. I am sure JWST's is much more impressive from a scientific standpoint.
Does someone have any intuitive explanation on why Hubble images for bright stars seem to have a cross-shaped lens-flare effect, while for JWT it's got six spikes?<p>It might be because of a different post-processing algorithm, or some phi-related magic, just curious a bit.
> This makes the Hubble telescope even more impressive in my eyes. Built 50 years ago with presumably 60 year old tech.<p>> > Hubble telescope was funded and built in the 1970s by the United States space agency NASA with contributions from the European Space Agency. Its intended launch was 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the 1986 Challenger disaster. Hubble was finally launched in 1990.<p>I commented on this other thread: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32074242" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32074242</a>
I’m curious what’s going on in the upper left area of the Carina Nebula image. The dust can’t have actually cleared out that much since the Hubble shot was taken, could it?
I do like that this is generating interest and optimism for science again, yet I have yet to hear a good answer on what new insight we can expect from the lifetime of the telescope. Does someone have a good list of questions we're hoping to get better answers for?<p>At this point I like it even for just brightening the news cycle anyway.
It's a bit ironic that to me, the layman, Hubble's space images have been so ubiquitous that Webb looks kind of... posterized. For example, in that last comparison of the Carina Nebula, Hubble has that ethereal quality that so many space pictures do, whereas Webb's crispness reminds me almost of a drawing.
So, I have a few questions.<p>1. Can the telescope be pointed in any direction? (of course, orthogonal to the suns rays, I understand the need to cool it down).<p>2. If it can be pointed, I am assuming some boosters would be used to pivot it. How long do these last?<p>3. Is there any info on the orbit? Can the orbit degrade?<p>4. All the fluid / gas required to correct / point, can it be refilled?
The new scope appears to be capable of wonderful images, and no doubt many new discoveries.<p>Too bad, then, about the crappy colorizing/outlining for the 'so pretty' crowd. I await the site that simply shows (frequency-shifted) images. Any colorizing should have a 'legend' describing its purpose.
Interesting that while they're certainly more detailed they also look "flatter" than the Hubble images. Is that due to differences in hardware or different choices in post-processing?
old and new images already looked highly processed, that photoshop look - which i think some of us got a little jaded on maybe.<p>what's more interesting to me is what we can learn about exoplanets from this mission<p><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-steamy-atmosphere-of-distant-planet-in-detail" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-...</a>
Are the four vs six point starbursts an artifact of the different lens / mirror designs? The Webb telescope has hexagonal mirrors, but not sure about Hubble.
Not trying to underscore this incredible achievement, but I'm curious if we could use AI techniques to upscale the Hubble images to achieve similar results as the Webb telescope. Has this been tried before?