General Discussions

[DJC]

Amazing example of how politics plays into science reporting.

I notice that NASA has released a bunch of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images. These are outstanding, but they left me a little blah, not because the images aren't great but because there was nothing to compare them to. I thought NASA missed a trick by not making direct comparisons between images from JWST and HST, like for like.

However, when a queried an associate who works as a professional astronomer it was explained to me that the scientists do not want to diminish the remaining worth of the HST. So the decision was made to deliberately not make any overt direct comparison in the initial public offerings. It's probably there somewhere buried in the background info, but they won't highlight it. Because they don't want funding for HST cut prematurely, and they fear this might happen if public perceive HST as redundant.

It's bit sad and a bit cynical, is it an opportunity lost?

My oldest brother is an astronomer and he would never compromise science for political purposes.  If anything, he is dedicated to using science against political agendas.

I haven't spoken to him about the James Webb Telescope images but I noticed a comparison of James Webb Space Telescope images to Hubble's pictures: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-13/n.../101233396