News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on James Webb is fully deployed. Parent comment

Re:James Webb is fully deployed by ascar on Saturday January 08, 2022 @05:46PM (#29857331)
I didn't check for sources again earlier, but this NASA article [1] explains it.

Yea shadow was the wrong word and doesn't actually apply because of the relative size of the sun and earth. However the L2 point is by definition in a straight line Sun -> Earth -> L2, so if the sun would be a single point light source that would block the sun and place the JWST in the permanent shadow thrown by the earth. The point is actually that the sunscreen is always facing earth and sun at the same time to block/reflect a maximum of heat.

[1] https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/orbit.html

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:James Webb is fully deployed by finnh on Saturday January 08, 2022 @06:39PM (#29857866)
It's orbiting L2, not at it. It will have basically constant sunshine, which is good - solar panels provide all its power. (no RTG)
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:James Webb is fully deployed by richardwhiuk on Saturday January 08, 2022 @08:43PM (#29858934)
It has constant sunshine on one side, and constant darkness on the other.
[ Parent | on HN ]