The launch was hyped as a very expensive, ten billion dollar, one-chance-only spacecraft riding on top of a rocket with only a 99% success history. Then a hundred deployment events all had to work exactly correctly. Then it had to reach the exact right orbit a million miles away, without overshooting. Then we had to wait for first light and then for first scientific image. To make the announcement, NASA gathered the President, the Vice President, and the NASA Administrator. And what did they say?

“Look, pretty stars!”

Wouldn’t it have been better for Administrator Nelson to have given some examples of what new possibilities may be found in the image, and couldn’t it have been in different false colors to emphasize that it contains different information than Hubble gathers? “This galaxy has a bunch of this kind of star, and that galaxy has a bunch of that kind of star. With further examination of even more distant (more historical) galaxies, we can see how galaxies formed and how their stars evolved to form the galaxies of today. This will give us more understanding about the universe and how it works.”

Robert’s post today gives a better comparison of how Webb gives additional information, but that thing they showed us yesterday was ho-hum astronomy as usual. https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/more-webb-images-released/

Ten billion dollars, and all we got was yet another Hubble picture.

For this letdown of an announcement, we didn’t need a president or a Vice President, neither of whom had anything to do with this telescope. The written press release was better than that boring, baffling show. Does anyone remember what any of them said, without reviewing the forgettable video?

Once again ….
The Heavens Proclaim …..

DougSpace: I did not say this “image doesn’t substantially give us much more than we learned from Hubble.” I said the image appeared comparable to Hubble’s deep fields, and then outlined what it likely saw that was new.

I have no doubt at all that Webb, working correctly now in space, will give us amazing and ground-breaking discoveries. For this we must celebrate.

I will also never believe the money was well spent. For the $11 billion spent on Webb we could have launched at least a half dozen better managed space telescopes that would have each produced as many discoveries as Webb. And in the process we would have likely learned the engineering to build a Webb-type telescope in far less time, and launched it for far less.

The description of clown world briefing sounds spot-on for where we are right now. Pathetic is generous.

If you could separate the bent distorted galaxies out of the picture I bet those that are left over would more than likely be in front of the gravity well.

Redshift would better tell.