Almost there: James Webb Space Telescope frees its mirrors and prepares for insertion NASA scientists have deployed mirrors on the James Webb Space Telescope ahead of a critical thruster firing on Monday. With less than 50,000km to go until the spacecraft reaches its L2 orbit, the segments that make up the primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are ready for alignment. The team carefully moved …
I would expect that NASA at least would have the self respect to give an approximate measurement, "half a paperclip"?? Bunch of hokey jokers is what is makes them sound like. No wonder they have conversion problems, with units like these in use! What KIND of paperclip, for starters?!
NASA is speaking for public consumption and half a paperclip can be visualized and comprehended by the public.I would guess that the final alignment announcement will include a reference to a fraction of a human hair.
Going through months of testing of the actuators and then months of final alignment is part of what makes NASA NASA.
Pints for the boffins, again.
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
The Twatter links you published have about a mile of tracking data attached after the actual URL. It would be nice if you stripped the "?" and everything following before you publish such a link because that's no longer the URL but data - tracking data.
OK?
"attention can turn to adjustments in the micron and nanometer ranges in order get the telescope properly aligned"
Stop it! You're doing my head in. Micron adjustments in microscope focussing - fine (literally fine, that's what the fine focussing know is for) but nanometre adjustments on a telescope...
Historically pounds are a more basic unit than stones which might have been more local standards. From a C18th diary: "I was weighed there and weighed 11 stone and 1 lb—15 lbs to the Stone. I was weighed at Banks woodmill several years since and weighed 11 stone 14 lbs"
Pounds, of course, are good hexadecimal units - none of this decimal malarky. What we need to do the job right is a 16lb stone.
To know that, we'd have to know how much the weight weighs, and then translate pounds to a hundred of those, assuming it's not some Britishism misuse of 'hundred' like y'all do sometimes.
An American will more readily understand weights in kilograms than in whatever silliness stones and hundredweights are. We don't use them, we have absolutely no clue how much they weigh without googling.
well, duh, divide by 112 for cwt and 2240 for tons... 58,035 and a bit cwt or about 2902 tons (uk)
Septics use short tons (2000lbs) which puts us in the odd position where a metric tonne is closer to a real ton than an American customary units ton....
Which situation is, of course, why everyone should use El Reg units cos they are the best.
It's an abbreviation of the latin libra, for scale or balance. The latin pound was called a libra pondo. Came to us first via a borrowing into proto-german rather than French, which is why pounds and ounces (libra pondo et unciae) as units of weight predate the Norman invasion.
The article's mention of the L2 Orbit made me wonder if orbit is the correct term. That goes of all of the Lagrange points.
L2, the second Lagrangian Point
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Herschel/L2_the_second_Lagrangian_Point
I wonder just how much stuff congregates at each of the points.
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