AskScience AMA series: I'm Lee Feinberg, Optical Telescope Element Manager for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope; we're installing the primary mirror on the Space Telescope, AMA! |
- AskScience AMA series: I'm Lee Feinberg, Optical Telescope Element Manager for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope; we're installing the primary mirror on the Space Telescope, AMA!
- Can someone explain how this Chimp can do this?
- If I accelerate and collect some particles produced by Unruh radiation in a jar. If I go to a friend who didn't accelerate and open the jar, what will we see?
- How do we explain the possibility of 'jets' being emitted from active galaxy nuclei?
- Why doesn't the chlorine in swimming pools form hydrochloric acid?
- Practical to reduce A/C load on engine by changing pulley sizes?
- When the surface of a body of water freezes, what is preventing the water beneath the ice from freezing too?
- When a virtual particle disappears from existence what is the "empty space" it leaves?
- How do white colored LEDs work?
- Has all of the earth's land been discovered?
- If I fall asleep while listening to music, does my brain still process what it is hearing?
- How does a blind persons internal clock work?
- When the big bang happened, why didn't the Universe collapse into a blackhole?
- is there a scientific way to explain getting a song stuck in your head?
- Why doesn't lightning travel in a straight line?
- If the brain constantly deletes memories to make room for new ones, how does the brain know which ones to delete and which ones to keep?
- why are objects in mirror closer than they appear?
- Why do sport/track records improve steadily over time? The record for the 100m men's was 10.6s back in 1912 a whole second short of Usain's 9.58s.
- Why can water pass a reverse osmosis membrane, while salt ions cannot?
- Why is the Africa's east coast so arid, even at the equator?
- What do people mean when they say that bird bones are hollow?
- What are the actual implications of quantum mechanics and relativity being incompatible?
| Posted: 21 Dec 2015 05:31 AM PST We're in the midst of assembling the massive primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope (which is comprised of 18 gold-coated segments) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. JWST is an engineering challenge, and when complete, this cutting-edge space telescope will be a giant leap forward in our quest to understand the Universe and our origins. It will examine every phase of cosmic history: from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang; to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets; to the evolution of our own solar system. As the Optical Telescope Element Manager, I would be happy to answer questions about the construction of this telescope. For more information, visit our website I will be back at 2 pm EST(11 am PST, 7 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! [link] [61 comments]  |
| Can someone explain how this Chimp can do this? Posted: 21 Dec 2015 04:05 AM PST This question is in refrence to this short video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkNV0rSndJ0 I'm just wondering does this chimp have a sort of "photographic memory" or can just complete this task better than the majority of mankind because of something else? [link] [12 comments]  |
| Posted: 21 Dec 2015 02:47 AM PST Let me elaborate on this thought experiment. So, I have a friend in an inertial frame of reference watching my every move with cameras and telescopes. I accellerate till I notice Unruh radiation, let's say I accelerate hard enough to see electrons and positrons. I open up a jar and collect some electrons in it. In the meantime, my friend has seen every action, but sees no Unruh radiation. He just sees me waving around with my jar in the vacuum. But then I slow down and head back to him in his inertial frame of reference and show him the jar. He knows the jar is empty, because he has seen me put nothing but a vacuum in them. I know there are electrons in the jar, because I've put them in myself. What would we see if we open the jar? Is it empty? or not? If there are electrons, how did they emerge in my friends point of view? If there are no electrons, where are they now? And what about conservation of charge? [link] [4 comments]  |
| How do we explain the possibility of 'jets' being emitted from active galaxy nuclei? Posted: 21 Dec 2015 01:31 AM PST From what I understand, we have observed jets of matter and energy being spewn out from active galaxy nuclei which are essentially, correct me if I'm wrong; supermassive black holes. Now, how do we explain the existence of these jets? I mean, how can matter and energy that has already crossed the event horizon be propelled out again? Thanks in advance! [link] [3 comments]  |
| Why doesn't the chlorine in swimming pools form hydrochloric acid? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 01:51 PM PST I was looking at this infographic, which states that chlorine gas combines with water in the lungs to form hydrochloric acid. Why doesn't chlorine do the same thing with water in swimming pools? Sorry if this is a noob chemistry question, but chemistry is not my field of study. If I had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with the fact that it would be water vapor and chlorine gas which combine, as opposed to liquid (??) chlorine and liquid water- meaning that it'd require more energy (?) to combine than the gases would. But that's just a guess. [link] [31 comments]  |
| Practical to reduce A/C load on engine by changing pulley sizes? Posted: 21 Dec 2015 01:34 AM PST I have a old Opel Astra 1400 '96 with an after market A/C. It puts so much load on the (small) engine that I basically cannot use it, unless I'm going downhill. I'm considering changing the engine pulley on the A/C drive belt to a 50% larger pulley size, to reduce the drag on the engine. I know this would be at the expense of less effective cooling, but it's either that or nothing. Will this reduce the effectiveness to much? Or have other practical downsides? [link] [2 comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2015 07:15 PM PST |
| When a virtual particle disappears from existence what is the "empty space" it leaves? Posted: 21 Dec 2015 01:42 AM PST |
| How do white colored LEDs work? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 07:42 PM PST Isn't white light a compendium of many various colors of light? How does the LED express this? Aren't LEDs only capable of producing light of a single wavelength? [link] [9 comments]  |
| Has all of the earth's land been discovered? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 08:44 PM PST With the vast oceans and cartography been around since people could make them, have all lands been discovered and charted? Could there be a biome in the middle of nowhere with prehistoric plants/animals? [link] [3 comments]  |
| If I fall asleep while listening to music, does my brain still process what it is hearing? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 09:03 PM PST |
| How does a blind persons internal clock work? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 07:10 PM PST Since our clock is based on light and whether or not its present, how would a blind person regulate their sleep pattern? [link] [1 comment]  |
| When the big bang happened, why didn't the Universe collapse into a blackhole? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 08:42 PM PST Ok, so from my understanding black holes can be created when by extreme density. When the Universe started all the matter and energy was packed into a very small space, and, I assume, would be extremely dense. So why didn't it happen? [link] [5 comments]  |
| is there a scientific way to explain getting a song stuck in your head? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 10:53 PM PST |
| Why doesn't lightning travel in a straight line? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 07:56 PM PST If lightning, and all electric arcs for that matter, are traveling the most efficient route from point a to point b, then why doesn't it just take a straight line rather than all of those jagged curves? I never really understood it. [link] [4 comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2015 08:17 PM PST |
| why are objects in mirror closer than they appear? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 10:25 PM PST |
| Posted: 20 Dec 2015 05:36 PM PST Are there any concrete scientific findings that reveal what factors contribute the most to this trend? I was thinking it could possibly be due to a combination of better nutrition, better instrumentation for more precise times/measurements, better equipment/training methods, and enhancement drugs. Is there a theoretical limit to what humans can achieve without artificial enhancements? [link] [10 comments]  |
| Why can water pass a reverse osmosis membrane, while salt ions cannot? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 08:38 PM PST This question is triggered by a late-night discussion I had with someone regarding the workings of a filter or membrane as is used in reverse osmosis, specifically in the (perhaps hypothetical) case of removing sodium chloride from saline. One of the key-points we disagreed on is whether a sodium ion is smaller than a water molecule in size. I figured they were, he figured they weren't. Based on the information I found, a sodium ion is indeed smaller than a water molecule, but feel free to correct me. But now the question remains: how does a reverse osmosis filter work? Information I found online seems to only state water can pass through it, while ions cannot, without mentioning why. Is it because the sodium ion and chloride ion both have to pass the membrane (eventhough I'm seeing a lower radius for chloride ions too)? Or perhaps the charge of the water molecule versus the ions results in a different effective radius? I'd be glad to hear your take on this. Thanks in advance! [link] [2 comments]  |
| Why is the Africa's east coast so arid, even at the equator? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 02:11 PM PST I am aware of why deserts form at certain latitudes and why they generally form on the west coasts of continents, but I cannot figure out why Africa's east coast is a desert at the equator, such as in Somalia. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks! Edit: Sorry for the title gore, I didn't realize until after I had posted. [link] [2 comments]  |
| What do people mean when they say that bird bones are hollow? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 02:15 PM PST What do people mean when they say "bird bones are hollow?" Surely they aren't full of air, right? But then what are they filled with that still classifies them as hollow? Google shows some pictures of them that have a weird web structure inside, but they are mostly photos of the bone after it is removed, so I'm not sure what the bones are like when they're still inside the animal. [link] [7 comments]  |
| What are the actual implications of quantum mechanics and relativity being incompatible? Posted: 20 Dec 2015 03:50 PM PST I have very limited knowledge of both subjects, but I just started looking into this, and it seems like it ought to be a pretty enormous problem. Doesn't it mean that one or both of our fundamental ways of understanding the universe must be to a large degree incorrect? Do proponents of each theory disagree with eachother entirely? Is it at all possible that entire modern scientific fields are completely or to a large degree incorrect? [link] [6 comments]  |
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