Turning up the heat: Finding out how well the Webb telescope's sunshield will perform

Monday, March 15, 2010 - 00:21 in Physics & Chemistry

Keeping an infrared telescope at very cold operating temperatures isn't an option, it's an absolute necessity. Serving as a radiation blocker, the Webb telescope sunshield is subjected to nearly 100,000 thermal watts of solar heat, and reduces that to one tenth of a watt on the cold side, a million to one reduction.

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