{"id":44741,"date":"2025-04-15T23:14:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T15:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/tuesday-telescope-is-the-james-webb-space-telescope-worth-10-billion\/"},"modified":"2025-04-15T23:14:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T15:14:47","slug":"tuesday-telescope-is-the-james-webb-space-telescope-worth-10-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/tuesday-telescope-is-the-james-webb-space-telescope-worth-10-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Telescope: Is the James Webb Space Telescope worth $10 billion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light\u2014a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.<\/p>\n

Was the James Webb Space Telescope worth it?<\/p>\n

Well, $10 billion is a lot<\/em> of money. Even when spread over a couple of decades, that\u2019s still a huge chunk of NASA\u2019s annual science budget. (And given the recent Trump administration attack on NASA\u2019s science budget, money is about to get a whole lot tighter.)<\/p>\n

However, it is difficult to put a price on advancing our species\u2019 understanding of the natural world and the wide Universe we\u2019re swimming in. And Webb is doing an amazing job of that.<\/p>\n

In 2009, NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mission to make infrared observations. This was the latest in a line of space-based infrared observatories, and it cost about 3 percent as much as the Webb telescope.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Two infrared views of NGC 1514. At left is an observation from NASA\u2019s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, Caltech, UCLA, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), Dave Jones (IAC)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Today\u2019s photo concerns the planetary nebula NGC 1514. In 2010, using the WISE telescope, NASA project scientist Mike Ressler discovered \u201crings\u201d around the planetary nebula. Now, thanks to Webb, the rings\u2014which are likely composed of small dust grains, heated by ultraviolet light from a white dwarf star\u2014can be seen clearly. And, oh my, they\u2019re spectacular.<\/p>\n

The clarity in the Webb photo, compared to what came before, is remarkable. So, is seeing the Universe in a new light worth $10 billion? I certainly think so, but I\u2019m writing a weekly story called the Tuesday Telescope, so it\u2019s safe to say I am biased.<\/p>\n

Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), Dave Jones (IAC)<\/p>\n

Do you want to submit a photo for the Daily Telescope? Reach out and say hello.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light\u2014a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9564,21,9565],"class_list":["post-44741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-daily-telescope","tag-space","tag-tuesday-telescope"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}