A few days ago, more precisely on Christmas Day 25 December 2021, NASA launched into orbit what is considered to be the most powerful and sophisticated space telescope ever built: the James Webb Telescope. But still Where exactly is it? Let’s find out together.
The launch of JWST may be one of the best Christmas gifts for aerospace enthusiasts. Everything went smoothly and smoothly, leading to the aforementioned date being marked as one of the most important events ever to occur in the history of cosmology.
If you want to refresh your memory, you can find it here Everything you need to know about the JWST Space Telescope This time – as you read these words – he is traveling at a remarkable speed towards his destination over 1.5 million kilometers from his home planet. But still Where exactly is it? Can the vehicle be tracked?
Thanks to the official NASA site dedicated to the James Webb Space Telescope (you can find it at the bottom of the message as a source), all of this is not only possible, but incredibly easy and intuitive. There is a lot of information on the site that explains how Constant monitoring of JWST, And its actual path parameters.
There is a telescope at the time of writing 489,000 km from our planet, And the moon has been a day past. As you can see, the Earth-Moon extension closed incredibly fast, using just l8% of total working hours. The distance traveled equals 25%, reflecting how the speed of the JWST varies considerably depending on its position.
To get to our satellite, the vehicle traveled faster, the rest of the journey would take longer, and it would take another 27-28 days to reach the orbit of point L2. The main reason for this discrepancy is the gravitational interactions of the various celestial bodies, which act against the “direction of travel”.
Last curiosity: In a few hours (hopefully tomorrow) the sensors can tell us too Extreme temperatures subject to James Webb. On the one hand – thanks to the complex protection of the solar shield – can maintain values up to + 85 ° C, while – on the side of the glasses and equipment – with a temperature of about -225. C (a basic cold for the purity of infrared measurements).
However, we know that JWST is currently in better health, ed Its main antenna was already in use.
