Because of its picture-perfect launch, Webb used less fuel than anticipated for its mid-course correction burns. Less fuel burned now means more fuel later to keep Webb in its orbit around L2.
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Unitized Pallet Structures (UPS) unfold. These two pallets (one forward and the other aft) hold the folded sunshield layers. The forward UPS went first. To prepare for the deployment, the spacecraft was maneuvered to provide warmer temperatures on the forward UPS and various heaters were activated to warm key deployment components. Key release devices were activated, and various electronics and software were configured. NASA announced successful deployment of the forward pallet at 1:51 eastern today.
Webb already passed several milestones since its spectacular launch last Saturday. It separated from the Ariane 5 rocket, unfolded its solar panels, and completed two engine burns to adjust its course. It also unfolded its gimbaled antenna for better communications.
Today, the James Webb Space Telescope successfully blasted off from the European Space Agency’s launch site in Kourou, French Guiana and started the month-long journey to its new home, 1 million miles from Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is ready for launch from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. More than 20 years in the making, JWST’s observations of the cosmos will change our understanding of our universe.
Using observations and archival data from several of NSF’s NOIRLab’s observatories, together with observations from telescopes around the world and in orbit, astronomers have discovered at least 70 new free-floating planets — planets that wander through space without a parent star — in a nearby region of the Milky Way.
Astronomers have made the most precise measurements yet of the motions of stars around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. These results, obtained with the help of the Gemini North telescope, show that 99.9% of the mass contained at the very center of the galaxy is due to the black hole, and only 0.1% could include stars, smaller black holes, interstellar dust and gas, or dark matter.
AURA is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Željko Ivezić as the next Director of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Construction Project
commissioning phase (OCP). Starting on December 6, 2021, and weather permitting, DKIST will perform first science observations, implementing observing experiments submitted by community members during the first proposal call.
From its vantage point high above Earth’s atmosphere, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has completed this year’s grand tour of the outer solar system – returning crisp images that complement current and past observations from interplanetary spacecraft. This is the realm of the giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune – extending as far as 30 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
More than half of the Sun-like star systems surveyed in the Milky Way harbor a mysterious type of planet unlike any in our own solar system.
The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) fully supports the scientific vision of Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and
Rocky debris, the pieces of a former rocky planet that has broken up, spiral inward toward a white dwarf in this illustration. Studying the atmospheres of white dwarfs that have been “polluted” by such debris, a NOIRLab astronomer and a geologist have identified exotic rock types that do not exist in our Solar System. The […]
AURA in Chile is now accepting applications for the 2021 AURA Padre Picetti Award, open to all science teachers in Chile!
to create an image of the area directly surrounding the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
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