Started by Theo Martin (@theo_m) ·
how the James Webb telescope stays cold enough to work
6 sources · 44 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- How is the James Webb telescope kept cold?
- Ended at
- “jwst sunshield deployment animation”
The Trail
- “how is jwst kept cold” (google.com)
- James Webb Space Telescope (en.wikipedia.org)
- Lagrange point (en.wikipedia.org)
- Halo orbit (en.wikipedia.org)
- Mid-Infrared Instrument (en.wikipedia.org)
MIRI needs its own cryocooler on top of everything else
- “jwst sunshield deployment animation” (youtube.com)
What I came away with
It sits near L2, about 1.5 million km away, behind a five-layer sunshield roughly the size of a tennis court. The cold side passively gets below about 50 K, and the mid-infrared instrument has a cryocooler to go much colder.
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