Firefly Sparkle Discovered

thehindu.com

The incredibly useful $10 billion+ infrared James Webb Space Telescope, launched on Dec. 25, 2021 from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana was then parked  near the second Lagrange point (L₂) of the Sun–Earth system, which is 1,500,000 km (930,000 mi) farther from the Sun than the Earth's orbit, and about four times farther than the Moon's orbit. 

A number of important discoveries in the vast reaches of space have occurred since the telescope has been put in operation but the latest is what has become known as the "Firefly Sparkle". Discovered by a team of astronomers from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, USA, the galaxy seems to share many of the characteristics of "our own" Milky Way, at the same stage of its presumed development 600 million years after the Big Bang.

As interesting as this might be to astronomy buffs and academics doing the research, there doesn't seem to be much use of this information to literally anyone else on earth. What we know or surmise about celestial bodies millions of light years away from earth can have no effect, positive or negative, on anyone living on this planet in the past, present or forseeable future. Ergo, how would the hyper-Whigs that have confiscated public money to finance this and similar projects justify them?

According to the Wiki on the telescope:

The James Webb Space Telescope has four key goals:

• to search for light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the universe after the Big Bang
• to study galaxy formation and evolution
• to understand star formation and planet formation
• to study planetary systems and the origins of life

 How does reaching these goals, even if possible, make life better for those who's confiscated assets were used? And how is it realistically possible to "understand star formation and the origins of life" by looking at infra-red images of a single point in time that have traveled over millions of light years.

Well, sure it would perhaps improve the life of the researchers at Wellesley College and others. Most of all it would lead to more and better paid positions at NASA. But even better yet, a huge proportion of the investment in the project would greatly improve the prospects of the stockholders, management and employees of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Ball Aerospace & Technologies and several thousand scientists, engineers, and technicians spanning 15 countries that have contributed to the build, test and integration of Webb. A total of 258 companies, government agencies, and academic institutions that participated in the pre-launch project; 142 from the United States, 104 from 12 European countries (including 21 from the U.K., 16 from France, 12 from Germany and 7 international), and 12 from Canada. Other countries as NASA partners, such as Australia, were involved in post-launch operation.(See "Institutional Partners Webb/NASA". jwst.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2 August 2023.)

While the design, construction, deployment and operation of the James Webb Space Telescope are marvels of technology, are the projects performed by it really science since there are no practical applications that can even be envisioned for its results? An innocent bystander might think that a few billion dollars devoted to this enterprise really doesn't harm anyone. If that were true the draconian IRS wouldn't be all over the schleps that fail to make tax payments. The reality is that it's one of the great Whig enterprises of all time. Public funds being directed to government cronies for ephemeral and unneeded programs wandering around the cosmos. "Science" run amok.

dhakatribune.com

Lamiya Mowla, Wellesley College