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+--- Thread: 10 billion dollar telescope - 1 million miles from Earth! (/Thread-10-billion-dollar-telescope-1-million-miles-from-Earth)
10 billion dollar telescope - 1 million miles from Earth! - bjcheung77 - 01-31-2022
Yes, this expensive telescope is there just for taking pictures! Basically, it took the space telescope a whole month to get to that destination... The article mentions it'll take about 4 months to calibrate, the pictures will initially be blurry. I wonder why it would take that long to calibrate.
Link: James Webb Space Telescope settles in at 'home', 1.5 million km from Earth (msn.com)
RE: 10 billion dollar telescope - 1 million miles from Earth! - rachel83az - 01-31-2022
I saw an explanation of this recently! The mirror is made up of a bunch of hexagonal pieces (12 or 20?) that are approximately the size of a ping-pong table. These pieces unfurled properly, but now it's going to take thousands or even millions of tiny adjustments to get each piece into exactly the right location. That's why it's going to take months to calibrate.