The pieces finally started coming together about a year ago. But it's the camera's wide-angle channel that really caught my attention, as evidenced by this half-gigabyte portrayal of the lunar near-side. You're probably familiar with LROC's high-resolution views of the Apollo landing sites. Then came Japan's highly successful Kaguya spacecraft, which orbited from 2007 to 2009, but its images had issues with coverage and lighting angles.Įventually, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, launched aboard a NASA spacecraft in 2009, made this new Moon globe possible. The Clementine orbiter, launched in 1994, got pole-to-pole coverage, but its images lacked enough resolution and snap. So for years I've been prowling around for a suitable database of lunar photos to make a new one. That old globe, while serviceable, just wasn't satisfying. But Replogle's adaptation doesn't look anything like what you'd see in the eyepiece - there's little distinction between the dark lunar maria and the brighter highlands, for example. Make no mistake: the LAC series was meticulously compiled and executed. The question of whether we are alone could melt away for good.The Sky & Telescope Moon globe (left) compared to the a widely used version created during the 1960s. Its many hoped-for discoveries promise to sharpen, and possibly revolutionize, astronomy, physics and philosophy. The Webb telescope will search for the origins of the universe and the elemental stew of life. Four hundred years ago came the first telescopes 52 years ago, humans landed and walked on the moon. Humanity has always been beset by one calamity or another, and humans have forever looked up at the stars for answers. The telescope is so smooth that it has been likened to an entire continent that features only fist-sized dimples. The level of precision is hard to fathom. There are in-flight challenges, repeatedly tested on Earth. Canada also produced two important components of the telescope: first, the fine guidance sensor, to keep the telescope fixed on target and second, the near-infrared imager and slitless spectrograph, which helps explore nearby solar systems. Among them is a University of Montreal physicist who will examine TRAPPIST-1 planets. Canadian scientists will lead or co-lead a 10th of the telescope’s first cycle of projects. It is there, and throughout the Webb project, that Canada contributes. Part of Aquarius, for the astrologically minded. A few of the most promising orbit the star TRAPPIST-1, a hop, skip and a jump away, a bit less than 40 light-years. In 2010-11, the Kepler space telescope saw the first rocky planet outside this solar system, a mere 560 light-years away. The Webb will try to discern variations of light that could show “biosignature gases” in an atmosphere – a testament to life. But the other mission that has a shot to make us rethink life as we know it is to stare at rocky planets that seem similar to ours. It will also gaze closer to home at planets such as Neptune. Looking even further back is the first of the Webb telescope’s four primary missions. It was a picture of the past never before imagined. The result – the Hubble Deep Field – revealed a “bewildering variety” of primordial galaxies. For 100 hours, the Hubble turned to look at nothing – a sliver of darkness. The Hubble unveiled glorious images and, in 1995, propelled humanity’s understanding of the universe’s formation. Launched in 1990, with its focus adjusted by astronauts in 1993, the Hubble is an optical telescope in orbit 600 kilometres above the Earth. The Webb telescope picks up where the Hubble Space Telescope left off. The wavelengths of once-visible light stretched out into electromagnetic radiation over their long journey from the universe’s ancient past to our present. The goal is to absorb light emitted from the first stars and galaxies as they formed 13.6 billion or so years ago, and as far back as 100 million years after the Big Bang. This requires something colder than the worst of Canadian winter: -223 C. The gold-plated telescope, 6.5 metres in diameter, will be a collector of infrared light, invisible to the eye but felt as heat. It will be close enough to easily keep touch with Earth, draw on solar power, and, with a five-layer sunshield of human-hair-thin plastic, keep itself chilled out. Gravity of Earth and sun will help keep the telescope in position.
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