Tag Archives: James Webb Space Telescope

JWST and the sorites paradox

Posted on July 12, 2022 by VM

Where does beauty end and ugliness begin? Continue reading →

Posted in Life notes, Science | Tagged beauty, ergodicity, James Webb Space Telescope, modus ponens, sorites paradox | Leave a comment

When the Hubble space telescope launched in April 1990, I was too young to understand what was going on – but not yesterday, when NASA launched its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Every once in a while, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged Camera Lucida, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, M5 cluster, Roland Barthes | Leave a comment

Ways of seeing

Posted on January 8, 2016 by VM

A lot of the physics of 2015 was about how the ways in which we study the natural world had been improved or were improving. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ASTROSAT, cryo-electron microscopy, Foldscope, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Large Hadron Collider, Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment, SESAME, Thirty Meter Telescope, Udaipur Solar Observatory | Leave a comment

The pitfalls of thinking that ASTROSAT will be ‘India’s Hubble’

Posted on September 23, 2015 by VM

The Hubble Space Telescope needs no introduction. It’s become well known for its stunning images of nebulae and star-fields, and it wouldn’t be amiss to say the telescope has even become synonymous with images of strange beauty often from distant cosmic … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ASTROSAT, Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb Space Telescope, Patrick McCray, Ritchey-Chrétien design, X-ray astronomy | Leave a comment

Money for science

Posted on July 20, 2015 by VM

Spending money on science has been tied to evaluating the value of spin-offs, assessing the link between technological advancement and GDP, and dissecting the metrics of productivity, but the debate won’t ever settle no matter how convincingly each time it is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged CERN, GDP, James Webb Space Telescope, productivity, public spending for science, Yuri Milner | Leave a comment

Why you should care about the New Horizons probe nearing Pluto

Posted on May 30, 2015 by VM

The Wire May 29, 2015 https://twitter.com/Alex_Parker/status/603533857523044352 Alex Parker is a planetary astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute, Texas, and he posted his tweet just as I started writing this piece. And not just for Parker – it’s an exciting time for everyone, an … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Charon, James Webb Space Telescope, Kuiper Belt, NASA New Horizons, Pluto, protoplanetary disk | Leave a comment

Looking for life? Look for pollution.

Posted on June 29, 2014 by VM

Four-thousand years on Earth and we’ve a lot of dirt to show for it. Why would an advanced alien civilization be any different? That’s the motivation that three astrophysicists from Harvard University have used to determine that powerful telescopes could look for signs … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged absorption spectroscopy, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, James Webb Space Telescope, tetrafluoromethane, trichlorofluoromethane | Leave a comment