Cav's Place

It’s good to be wrong sometimes, and this was one of those moments, since I had misgivings about what the James Webb Space Telescope will be capable of and yet the first images, starting with the one that was released early, yesterday, definitely delivered. I mean, assuming that it was going to finally make it past all the problems and obstacles, it did seem that it was going to be an extraordinary tool for scientists, at least as long as it will start and then continue to operate as intended. However, such a flagship mission, with such an immense budget, is sadly required to generate great media and public interest in order to have a future, regardless of its scientific value, and it’s its capacity to produce the “eye candy” that’s responsible for generating such interest that I had doubts about.
Well, it does appear that I shouldn’t have worried, because these images are just what would be expected from Hubble‘s successor. Whether they’re enough to make humanity start looking up once again at a time when we’re stumbling and looking down at our feet probably more than at any point for at least the past several decades, I don’t know, but it is just about as much as anyone could have asked of it, and of the team. Now I can only hope that no problems will appear and it’ll continue to function at full capacity for many, many years to come, seeing as, unlike Hubble, it won’t have the benefit of maintenance and repair missions, or at least not in the foreseeable future, considering our current level of technology.