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Well, @NASA said “Happy LGBTQSTEMDay!” by announcing that they’ve decided to keep the name of JWST. James Webb was the administrator of NASA during the Apollo era, but also while the agency was firing queer folks simply for being queer. Based on the press release and the introduction to the full report, they’ve decided to take a very narrow question of whether there is “evidence [that] directly links Webb to any actions or follow-up related to the firing of individuals for their sexual orientation”. Never mind that Webb wasn’t directly responsible for Apollo, either, he was overseeing the entire agency. It happened under his watch. He knew it was going on when he was Undersecretary of State. That it was supposedly “unremarkable” at the time does not excuse him from responsibility.
As a queer woman in astronomy, it continues to be deeply hurtful that NASA will not acknowledge that they screwed up when naming JWST. The naming didn’t follow standard procedures, nor did it involve international partners. Furthermore, NASA has used this opportunity to bully queer astronomers and journalists, including at least one queer person of color.
ETA: Good new article from Nature, too
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First high resolution image from the new Space Telescope! These galaxies are all billions of light years away, and this whole image covers a part of the sky smaller than a grain of sand held at arm's length
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Why I will not write about JWST
Why I will not write about JWST
My NASA LEGO collection, including the “women of NASA” set and the Space Shuttle Discovery set that included the Hubble Space Telescope.
Today (July 11, 2022), the first images from the new flagship space observatory JWST will be unveiled to the general public. It’s a major accomplishment for the scientists and engineers from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, not…
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Tweeted
RT @HakeemOluseyi: Check out this interview. @DrBrianKeating and I discuss the #renameJWST disinformation campaign. I provide the true story of what happened. https://t.co/zGFyrvwPTW
— Brian Keating (@DrBrianKeating) May 4, 2022
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The Hubble Space Telescope vs The JWST
Same target, a whole new universe
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THE FIRST JWST IMAGE HAS BEEN RELEASED
Webb's First Deep Space shows the highest resolution image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723! We're looking back more than 13 billion years looking at the highest resolution infrared view of the universe we've ever seen!
Stay tuned for more images being released tomorrow, July 12th, at 10:30 am ET (14:30 UTC)!
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Absolutely breathtaking
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Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and B. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)
Jupiter, center, and its moon Europa, left, are seen through the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument 2.12 micron filter.
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Here's a reminder to stop shortening the James Webb Space Telescope's name to "James Webb" and instead use "JWST".
"A lot of us would appreciate it if people didn't refer to the JWST as just "James Webb". He does not deserve to have his name associated with the praise the telescope receives. He didn't do these things. What he did do was awful. I only wanna hear sentences in which "James Webb" is the subject when they're about what he did. Otherwise it erases everything that we fight to bring awareness to. All we see when people do this is praise for a man who brought so much pain to the community. It feels like people are ignoring the fight to rename it and it legitimises NASA's name choice and justifies their horrible treatment of those who spoke up. So please consider using the full name, JWST or other alternative names that have been suggested."
from this post:
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"Even through your hardest days, remember we are all made of stardust." - Carl Sagan
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The first JWST image is creating quite a buzz around gravitational lensing because of the sheer amount of it in the image. Gravitational lensing makes galaxies appear warped like these:
Because spacetime curves around a massive body, light bends when it's near enough a massive object, allowing us to see very distant galaxies behind the cluster we're looking at.
Here is some recommended reading on it if you wanna learn more:
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DON'T FORGET
Today, July 11th at 5pm ET (21:00 UTC) NASA will release the first JWST image! More images will follow July 12th at 10:30 ET (14:30 UTC).
Here you'll find all you need to know about the schedule and where you can watch the image reveals live:
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