Ep. 616: Hangout-a-thon Episode 1 – The Great Observatories
Description
You’re familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope, of course, but it’s just one of NASA’s Great Observatories. After Hubble came three more incredible observatories, each greater than the last. Together, they would fill in almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
Show Notes
NASA’s Great Observatories (NASA)
JWST (NASA)
Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope (NASA)
Enrico Fermi (Wikipedia)
NASA Celebrates 25 Years of Breakthrough Gamma-ray Science (NASA)
Spitzer Space Telescope (Caltech)
Chandra X-ray Observatory (Harvard University)
Introduction to the Electromagnetic Spectrum (NASA)
Adaptive Optics (ESO)
How Fixing the Hubble Spacecraft Works (How Stuff Works)
Starship (SpaceX)
GRB 990123 (Wikipedia)
Brighter than an Exploding Star, It’s a Hypernova! (NASA)
G344.7-0.1: When a Stable Star Explodes (CXO)
The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (NASA)
Herschel (ESA)
Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) (NASA JPL)
Terminator (IMdB)
Spitzer Captures Cosmic Mountains of Creation (NASA)
Spitzer View of the Center of the Milky Way (Caltech)
What Is The Great Attractor? (Universe Today)
Farewell Compton (NASA)
Kepler and K2 (NASA)
Voyager (NASA JPL)
Transcript
Transcriptions provided by GMR Transcription Services
Fraser: Astronomy Cast. Episode 616: The Great Observatories. Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos where we help you understand not only what we know but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today. With me, as always, is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of CosmoQuest. Hey, Pamela, how you doing?
Dr. Gay: I’m doing well. I have been streaming for almost 13 hours now. Some of you out there listening to this aren’t watching live. We are recording this episode of Astronomy Cast during the 2021 hangout-a-thon as we work to raise funds to keep all of our programs going. But, we are taking this time to record a very special episode of Astronomy Cast on a topic I can’t believe –
Fraser: A great episode.
Dr. Gay: Yeah. I can’t believe we haven’t done this yet.
Fraser: Well, we’ve done it in pieces.
Dr. Gay: Sort of.
Fraser: Yeah. Yeah. I think we have. But, yeah, to think, 15 years, we haven’t talked about the Great Observatories. Now is their time.
Dr. Gay: Yes.
Fraser: I mean, by your rules, I guess, some of them are still operating. So, I think science has been delivered. So, I think now it’s fair. Now we’re allowed to talk about them, right?
Dr. Gay: Yes. They’ve done more than return first light.
Fraser: That’s true. All right. Well, you’re familiar with the Hubble space telescope of course. But, it’s just one of NASA’s Great Observatories. After Hubble came three more incredible telescopes, each greater than the last. Actually, that’s not true. The first one was the greatest. But together, they would fill in almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum. All right, Pamela, let’s talk about the Great Observatories.
Dr. Gay: Where do we start?
Fraser: So, did they start – did they name them before they launched them?
Dr. Gay: No. No. So –
Fraser: They named them after they launched them?
Dr. Gay: Yeah. So, this is one of the things that those of us who are of a certain generation, I will say, we look at the fact that JWST, which I am just gonna call JWST, we look to the fact that it was named what is now decades before it launched. And, we’re just like, “You cursed it.” You wait to name the telescope until it has first light. I was out at Sonoma State Observatory doing a workshop for GLAST, which is now the Fermi telescope. Right after Fermi’s launch, while I was there, they were getting back first light from the telescope, and they were corresponding with Fermi’s family to be like, “Okay. So, the telescope works. Everything’s good. Are you down with us naming this telescope –”And, it was much more formal and much more dignified.
But, “Are you down with us naming this telescope after Enrico Fermi to celebrate his life and his discoveries?” And, that’s the way I really think it should be.
Fraser: Yeah. Yeah, I a hundred percent agree with you. The original name for James Webb was the Next Generation Space Telescope.
Dr. Gay: Yes.
Fraser: And, a name that I saw on Twitter that I really liked was the Very Cold Space Telescope. So, I think you’re exactly right. Give the telescope a working name that is very utilitarian, and then when it achieves first light, when everything is done and safe and then the spirit of the telescope arises in your mind and then you give it its proper, formal but also naming after a person who’s important.
Dr. Gay: And, my favorite head cannon of space telescopes comes from our producer Ally, who at one point spontaneously said something along the lines of, “The reason JWST is so delayed is it doesn’t even like its name, and it’s waiting for new one before it will deliver the science.”
Fraser: Yeah. There you go. So then, let’s talk about the Great Observatories. So, what are they? We’ll start with that. What are the Great Observatories?
Dr. Gay: So, the Great Observatories are the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton X-Ray Observatory, the Spitzer Infrared Observatory and of course, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
Fraser: And so, why did they call them the Great Observatories? Was it just because they were sort of launched around the same time?
Dr. Gay: No. It
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