NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetime expectations

Re:NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetim... by dotancohen on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @12:13PM (#29894306)

  > Perhaps the same applies to space telescopes too?

Not really. The amount of targets that can be explored with JWST would take far longer than 20 years to image. And many targets, such as exoplanets or expanding novas, benefit from periodic reimaging with the same instrument.

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Re:NASA says Webb’s excess fuel likely to extend its lifetim... by dredmorbius on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @12:36PM (#29894695)

Those targets themselves represent varying levels of interest and returns. The distribution of these is all but certainly a power law or Zipf function itself.

That's not to say we'll run out of interesting things to look at. Only that there is in fact a case of diminishing returns and interest.

But yes, space is big. And there's much in it.

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