Let me state for the record that **I am not trolling**, and I am blown away by the imagery as much as the next person.
But what can we do with this new information? Where does it take us? How does it help us?
What’s next?
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Understanding how the universe works, was formed, currently operates deepens our baseline understanding of the very foundations of physics. The impact and application of which is far reaching into literally almost every aspect of our lives. It’s not just some expensive novelty and there is a lot more value in exploring and understanding the universe than just potential space travel applications.
Just to add, in the news briefing that NASA held yesterday, many of the people reiterated that this is the Webb “warming up” or the researches practicing with the telescope to ensure that everything is still working right. They’re getting images and data that already blow all other instruments out of the water when it comes to clarity, and learning new things (particularly the exoplanet data). In the coming weeks when they start pointing it at things that researchers want to look at, we’ll likely be learning a lot more.
The functional application of several momental medicines was discovered while looking for completely different things.
Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is the highest pure pursuit.
IIRC there’s a story about Michael Faraday giving a demonstration to the Queen of England where he used a magnet to generate an electrical current and she was quoted afterwards saying something like, “but of what use is it?”
The JWST pictures help us analyzing cosmology. Cosmology is the field which people thought no one would be able to figure it out, but surprise.
Did you learn basic arithmetic first or what it’s used for first?
Same with language.
And the same applies to science
This is only the beginning. We will be processing all the data from Hubble telescope still for years.
James Webb telescope will help us know the composition of thousands of exoplanets that future human species may one day call home. It will also help us understand more about the evolution of the universe and give more detailed images and better data than Hubble.
I’m assuming that the clearer images make it easier to know exactly what we’re looking at, or at least be able to make more educated guesses. I think it also helps in the sense that we can see what other galaxies look like and how they influence each other.
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