txchnologist:That’s a serious beach umbrellaEngineers last week successfully stacked and unfolded a
txchnologist:That’s a serious beach umbrellaEngineers last week successfully stacked and unfolded a giant 1 million SPF sunscreen that will protect NASA’s next generation space telescope as it investigates the history and working of the universe.The tennis court-sized solar shield will protect the James Webb space telescope’s delicate infrared sensors from interference by the sun. It will be folded during launch and unfurl on command once the telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever built, reaches its orbit. Deploying the shield will create a hot sun-facing side and cold side pointed away from our star. The observatory’s warm side will reach 185 degrees Fahrenheit, while the cold side will be a chilly -388 degrees F thanks to the sunshield’s five layers that passively radiate incoming solar energy out into space. The sun, Earth and moon will always remain on one side to prevent their infrared energy from swamping the Webb’s sensing equipment, which is designed to pick up the same wavelengths from faint and very distant sources in the universe. Read More -- source link