[whatshisface]

The JWST's mission is to see deep infared, which can pass through interstellar clouds. It will uncover things that have been veiled to us since the beginning of history. It can only be built as a space telescope because the frequency of its intended observations are so low that to a device sensitive to them, air radiates light of blinding intensity.

[RapidFire]

Thanks for this comment; that's a fascinating bit of information.

[justshowpost]

But that was just like saying what F-35's mission is to fly high in the skies, sorry.

This sort of proves my point, no one knows which exactly research JWST will do upon deployment, because original mission goals mainly became obsolete.

[mhio]

There is a long list of scientists that know exactly what research they are doing on JWST down to the minute [0]

For example, Dr Christine Chen et al will be using JWST for at least 34.9 hours to study the Icy Kuiper Belts in Exoplanetary Systems using near infrared spectroscopy [1]

[0] https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-progra...

[1] https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-public/1563.pdf

[Rebelgecko]

>This sort of proves my point, no one knows which exactly research JWST will do upon deployment

The research isn't a secret, JWST is already booked solid for like 18 months after it launches. You can see how that time is allocated across various projects here: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-progra...

[justshowpost]

Yeah, I read that, just not impressed by minor projects with low outcome. It roughly equal to routine PhD-tier experiments done on the accelerator at some provincial lab.

Just look at breakthrough chances from, for example, 5 days trans-neptunian object search or the pointing of instrument at largely unexplored Uranus system for petty 30 hours.