cua cà mau cua tươi sống cua cà mau bao nhiêu 1kg giá cua hôm nay giá cua cà mau hôm nay cua thịt cà mau cua biển cua biển cà mau cách luộc cua cà mau cua gạch cua gạch cà mau vựa cua cà mau lẩu cua cà mau giá cua thịt cà mau hôm nay giá cua gạch cà mau giá cua gạch cách hấp cua cà mau cua cốm cà mau cua hấp mua cua cà mau cua ca mau ban cua ca mau cua cà mau giá rẻ cua biển tươi cuaganic cua cua thịt cà mau cua gạch cà mau cua cà mau gần đây hải sản cà mau cua gạch son cua đầy gạch giá rẻ các loại cua ở việt nam các loại cua biển ở việt nam cua ngon cua giá rẻ cua gia re crab farming crab farming cua cà mau cua cà mau cua tươi sống cua tươi sống cua cà mau bao nhiêu 1kg giá cua hôm nay giá cua cà mau hôm nay cua thịt cà mau cua biển cua biển cà mau cách luộc cua cà mau cua gạch cua gạch cà mau vựa cua cà mau lẩu cua cà mau giá cua thịt cà mau hôm nay giá cua gạch cà mau giá cua gạch cách hấp cua cà mau cua cốm cà mau cua hấp mua cua cà mau cua ca mau ban cua ca mau cua cà mau giá rẻ cua biển tươi cuaganic cua cua thịt cà mau cua gạch cà mau cua cà mau gần đây hải sản cà mau cua gạch son cua đầy gạch giá rẻ các loại cua ở việt nam các loại cua biển ở việt nam cua ngon cua giá rẻ cua gia re crab farming crab farming cua cà mau
Skip to main content

James Webb’s sunshield extended to its full 47-foot width

Following a successful launch on Christmas day, the James Webb Space Telescope is currently heading through space, having traveled almost 500,000 miles from Earth. It is just over halfway to its eventual destination: The L2 orbit, called a Lagrange point, where it will move around the sun in a complex path. As James Webb travels it is slowly unfolding its various hardware which had to be folded up origami-style to fit into the Ariane 5 rocket which launched it.

The telescope is currently in the process of deploying its tennis court-sized sunshield — a complex operation of many steps which began earlier this week and is expected to take four to five days. This started with the deployment of structures called Pallet Structures, which hold the sunshield itself plus components like cables and pulleys. With the forward and aft pallet structures in place, the next step was deploying the Deployable Tower Assembly, a structure that creates space between the spacecraft and the telescope to make space for the sunshield. This deployment took place on Wednesday, December 29.

Recommended Videos

With that done, over Thursday and Friday this week the team deployment the aft moment flap to help maintain the telescope’s orientation once it is in orbit, and released the sunshield covers which protected the thin sunshield during launch.

The latest update from NASA is that James Webb has extended its two sunshield mid-booms. These “arms” extend to the left and right of the telescope, pulling the thin membrane of the sunshield with them until it spanned the full 47 feet of its width. Their deployment means that all of the 107 release devices for the various parts of the sunshield deployment have now been released.

“The mid-booms are the sunshield’s workhorse and do the heavy lifting to unfold and pull the membranes into that now-iconic shape,” said Keith Parrish, Webb observatory manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a blog post.

The deployment of the mid-booms took a little longer than expected as the team paused to assess a possible issue with the rolling up of the sunshield cover. The switches on the cover seemed not to have activated, but other sensors showed that the cover had indeed rolled up correctly. They decided to go ahead and the deployment was successful.

“Today is an example of why we continue to say that we don’t think our deployment schedule might change, but that we expect it to change,” Parrish said. “The team did what we had rehearsed for this kind of situation — stop, assess, and move forward methodically with a plan. We still have a long way to go with this whole deployment process.”

The next step is for the sunshield to be tensioned, in which each of its five layers will be stretched into place, which is expected to happen over the next few days.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
James Webb takes rare direct image of a nearby super-Jupiter
Artist’s impression of a cold gas giant orbiting a red dwarf. Only a point of light is visible on the JWST/MIRI images. Nevertheless, the initial analysis suggests the presence of a gaseous planet that may have properties similar to Jupiter.

Even with huge ground-based observatories and the latest technology in space-based telescopes, it's still relatively rare for astronomers to take an image of an exoplanet. Planets outside our solar system are so far away and so small and dim compared to the stars they orbit that it's extremely difficult to study them directly. That's why most observations of exoplanets are made by studying their host stars. Now, though, the James Webb Space Telescope has directly imaged a gas giant -- and it's one of the coldest exoplanets observed so far.

The planet, named Epsilon Indi Ab, is located 12 light-years away and has an estimated temperature of just 35 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). The fact it is so cool compared to most exoplanets meant that Webb's sensitive instruments were needed to study it.

Read more
One half of this wild exoplanet reaches temperatures of 1,450 degrees Fahrenheit
webb wasp 39b dayside nightside stsci 01j2f12rm1s3n39yj938nhsf93 png

This artist’s concept shows what the exoplanet WASP-39 b could look like based on indirect transit observations from JWST and other space- and ground-based telescopes. Data collected by its NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) show variations between the morning and evening atmosphere of the planet. NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

One of the ground-breaking abilities of the James Webb Space Telescope is that researchers can use it to not only detect distant planets but also to peer into their atmosphere. Now, new research using Webb has uncovered differing conditions between morning and evening on a distant exoplanet, the first time such differences have been observed on a planet outside our solar system.

Read more
Webb captures a Penguin and an Egg for its two-year anniversary
This “penguin party” is loud! The distorted spiral galaxy at center, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical galaxy at left, the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. A new near- and mid-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope, taken to mark its second year of science, shows that their interaction is marked by a faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow.

This “penguin party” is loud! The distorted spiral galaxy at center, called the Penguin, and the compact elliptical galaxy at left, called the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. A new near- and mid-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope, taken to mark its second year of science, shows that their interaction is marked by a faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Today, July 12, marks two years since the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope were unveiled. In that time, Webb has discovered the most distant galaxies known, uncovered surprises about the early universe, peered into the atmospheres of distant planets, and produced a plethora of beautiful images of space.

Read more