The Visitor Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center is filled with displays.
While we waited for our bus to be searched for bombs by the four legged bomb sniffer we could wander around the exhibits.
No bombs were found so we boarded the bus to go visit a very, very large clean room.
But not clean as in someone had taken a mop and bucket or vacuum cleaner to it, but clean as in no outside particles. It's official name is much longer.
It was in this clean room that the mirrors for the James Webb Space Telescope were assembled.
The mirrors have left and of course kept clean but multiple wrappings we were told. They are now in California where they are joined with the rest of the telescope in preparation for launch by the French Space Agency sometime in the future.
The clean room is being used for other preparations now. You can see how well wrapped staff working there have to be.
The panels below are the filters - several stories high.
Our docent with a model of the telescope. Unlike the Hubble Telescope which orbits the Earth and was reachable so it could be fixed, this telescope will orbit the sun. It will be sending back pictures from very deep space, in a sense looking back in time 13 billion years. Fascinating stuff. Go to the website above to learn more.
3 comments:
An interesting tour. I bet we will be hearing some interesting information from the telescope that will be orbiting the sun.
...quite a display. A bomb sniffer, really.
That would be a most interesting visit. You were lucky to have the chance to visit. Good, no bombs
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