Nasa engineers yesterday completed the final unfolding of the huge primary
mirror of the agency’s James Webb space telescope. The manoeuvre was the
final step of the $10bn observatory’s two-week deployment phase that began
with its launch on Christmas Day.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/08/nasa-engineers-complete-the-unfolding-of-the-james-webb-space-telescope

The telescope, which has already travelled more than 600,000 miles across
space, is the largest, most powerful space telescope ever built and had to
be folded up tightly so it would fit inside its Ariane 5 launch rocket.

Since then, engineers have been directing the slow unfolding, piece by
piece, of the observatory as it heads on its voyage to a gravitationally
stable point a million miles from the Earth. Its tennis-court size sun
shield – which will keep its delicate instruments cold – has already been
deployed, as well as its secondary mirror.

Last week, Nasa began the final manoeuvres involved in deploying the
Webb’s main mirror, which will collect light from the furthest depths of
the universe and which is made up of 18 gold-coated segments: a central
section plus two three-segment side panels. In a sequence of delicate
moves, the first panel was successfully deployed on Friday, a process that
took five-and-a-half hours.

And this was followed up yesterday when engineers released the final,
second segment of mirrors which slotted into the mirror’s central core,
thus completing the telescope’s vast 6.5 metre diameter mirror. Last night
engineers were completing the final latching manoeuvres that will hold
this last segment in place.

Described as a “time machine” by scientists, the James Webb telescope will
allow astronomers to study the beginning of the universe shortly after the
big bang, 13.8 billion years ago, and to hunt for signs of life-supporting
planets in our own galaxy.

The James Webb, named after a former Nasa administrator, still has to
travel 400,000 miles to its destination and will then need five more
months for its instruments to be carefully calibrated.

For astronomers, the James Webb offers the prospect of capturing images of
the first galaxies to form after the big bang, understanding how stars are
born and evolve, and investigating the potential for life to appear in
planetary systems. All this will have to be done in a decade, its maximum
likely lifetime. After 10 years, it is expected the telescope will run out
of fuel and slowly drift off course.

### - our new 'aye in the sky' eh? (expensive! but kinda cool though)

outer space/inner-space? there does appear to be some kinda connection
there though innit ('as above so below' said the ancients for example...)

the 'exploration' of outer space, however, being something of an armchair
pursuit, even for nasa unless you're an actual astronaut that is...
whereas 'inner-space' is personally open to virtually anyone who cares to
explore/probe it?

in that context then, it's likely that the exploration of 'inner-space'
will actually succeed first even though it's all about outer-space at this
time... mainly because no-doubt there will be people born (if they haven't
already) who'll become total experts in the field of managing dreaming
states in order to explore/probe the parameters of this inner space,
people who will potentially open our eyes to possibly even really amazing
things, stuff that even has the potential to render 'physical' travel into
space: redundant!

i guess all we need NOW then is some kinda 'more-reliable/dependable'
means of 'accessing' all this inner space huh...

oh THAT'S right! we just discovered one!

heh ;)