{"id":84,"date":"2015-08-12T20:59:51","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T20:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/?p=84"},"modified":"2016-03-11T20:15:51","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T20:15:51","slug":"pluto-and-ball-aerospace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/?p=84","title":{"rendered":"Pluto and Ball Aerospace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pluto_charon\"<\/a>Years ago, when I was with the W. M. Keck Observatory out on the Big Island of Hawaii, we took this picture of Pluto\u00a0and its moon Charon, using “Adaptive\u00a0Optics.” I am pretty sure that, at the time, this was the highest\u00a0resolution image of Pluto ever taken.<\/p>\n

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\"pluto_ralph\"<\/a>Now, unless you have been living under a rock recently, you have no doubt seen\u00a0the truely amazing images of Pluto taken by the New Horizon\u00a0spacecraft. These images put mine to shame! That’s what happens when you have a good instrument.<\/p>\n

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\"ralph\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But–I bet you didn’t know this: the instrument that took this\u00a0image is named “Ralph.” (I don’t mean the acronym R-A-L-P-H. I mean it’s\u00a0**name** is “Ralph,” after The Honeymooners. It has a\u00a0spectroscopic counterpart named “Alice.”) And, I am pleased to say\u00a0that Ralph was built by the finest aerospace company in the\u00a0business–Ball Aerospace, right here in Boulder, Colorado! Ball has a reputation for building world class instruments for Space Missions.<\/p>\n

Now–here’s the really neat part: Ball is\u00a0also one of the main contractors\u00a0for JWST, building the mirrors and\u00a0much of the other hardware for the telescope, and developing the\u00a0algorithms and software for aligning the telescope after launch. I am proud to be an employee of Ball Aerosappe. And, when I finally depart for this year long bicycle ride, I will be proud to wear the Ball Aerospace logo on the back of my Bike Jersey. Hey–by the way–in just a day or two, \u00a0you will be able to order these jersey’s from this Webb site. They are absolutely beautiful. And, when you order a jersey, 5 bucks goes to the STEM Education Coalition!<\/p>\n

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Years ago, when I was with the W. M. Keck Observatory out on the Big Island of Hawaii, we took this picture of Pluto\u00a0and its moon Charon, using “Adaptive\u00a0Optics.” I am pretty sure that, at the time, this was the highest\u00a0resolution image of Pluto ever taken. Now, unless you have been living under a rock
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwstworldbicycletour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}