Why did the James Webb Space Telescope appear to curve back and forth in the sky? | |
TOTAL1TY
User ID: 80379140 United States 12/29/2021 10:14 PM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | In this video we take a look at why JWST had such an odd motion during the time lapse I recorded this past weekend and we revisit our old friend, parallax. That's right, the same principle that caused ISON to look like an angled "UFO" in a stacked image from Hubble also caused JWST to look like a mirrored S shape in my time lapse over the weekend. Only instead of being caused by Hubble's orbit around the earth, this time it was caused by earth's rotation. After calculating the orbit, I ran a simulation looking back at earth from the perspective of JWST and sure enough, a flipped image of the curve lines up perfectly with the apparent motion of Florida relative to the background stars over the same time period. Increased drag due to deployment of the solar radiation blocker that's the size of a tennis court? It slowly unfolds for 8 days after launch. Could be a possibility. Drag?? in space?? I suppose there is a tiny bit of stuff out there to impart drag, but it would take years to impact any trajectory so you would notice. They're putting up a sun shield the size of a tennis court. Solar radiation could be striking that shield pushing against it. I apologize if drag was not the correct astrophysical term. |