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Space telescope is worth the effort

Nature volume 468, page 508 (2010)Cite this article

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Your sensationalist headline 'The telescope that ate astronomy' could more appropriately have highlighted the promise of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for astronomy's future (Nature 467, 1028–1030; 2010).

No facilities exist on or off this planet — or are called for in the recent US decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics — for finding the first galaxies or for detecting liquid water on habitable planets around other stars. These capabilities have been part of the JWST science plan since its inception.

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  1. Space Telescope Science Institute, USA

    Matt Mountain & John Grunsfeld

  2. Space Science Institute, USA

    Heidi Hammel

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  1. Matt Mountain
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  2. John Grunsfeld
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  3. Heidi Hammel
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Mountain, M., Grunsfeld, J. & Hammel, H. Space telescope is worth the effort. Nature 468, 508 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/468508c

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  1. Isabel Chiu

    The phrase "cooling it to â&#x88&#x92313 °C" doesn't make sense in the light of the 3rd law of thermodynamics, which states that the minimum temperature which objects can get is -273.15°C.

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