Chemistry C block Current Event 2
For this assignment I read the article, "NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December" by Elizabeth Gamillo, on how NASA is planning on launching its latest and most advanced space telescope yet, being the James Webb Space Telescope (or the JWST). The article begins with some context on the JWST's predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble was the first major space telescope, being a large telescope which could see things from outside the Earth's atmosphere and relay images back to Earth. The Hubble had a great impact, making many discoveries for the JWST to build upon. The article then moves on to talk about the scale of the JWST as a project. The JWST was originally envisioned in 1996 and has taken 25 years to finally complete. The construction also took place in 28 states and cost roughly $10 billion. Not only that, but the project took a huge amount of manpower to complete. 1,200 technicians, engineers, and scientists from 14 different countries collaborated on the design and construction. The article continues on with how the space telescope works. If you've seen pictures of the JWST, you might observe how it looks like a shiny honeycomb with a dish shape. The mirror, which will collect infrared light from objects in space, is 21 feet wide and made of hexagon shaped panels covered in a very thin layer of gold. This will allow the JWST to collect six times the amount of light than the Hubble telescope. To detect infrared light, the mirror will have to stay at the exact temperature of 364℉. To stop the temperature of the mirror rising, the space telescope has sun shields to protect from the sun's heat. The telescope will be stationed almost a million miles from earth. One of the harder problems for designers was to fold up the space telescope inside a rocket to take it into space. The article says, "The segmented mirrors that weigh 46 pounds each also needed to fold origami-style so that they could fit inside the rocket and later bloom open once it reaches its destination."
Because the telescope is so powerful, astronomers are expecting to make many discoveries. But building the telescope has also forced engineers to make many advances as well. For example, they had to invent a way to align all the parts of the mirror so precisely that it would work like a single surface. They also had to create sun shields to block the sun's heat, or else it would be detected by the telescope and interfere with its images. But the telescope's biggest impact is expected to be the amazing new images it sends back to Earth. As the article states, "It will help astronomers understand how young galaxies form, peer through clouds to examine how stars take shape, study exoplanets, and observe nearby celestial objects, including planets within our own solar system." As explained by NASA astrophysicist Jane Rigby, " Webb will be able to see galaxies as they looked a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang," which will be a big advance from Hubble. Scientists have many questions that this space telescope can answer, however it is more than likely that this space telescope will also uncover things previously unknown and not yet imagined.
This article's strength lies in it being short and to the point. It explains how space telescopes work, while also giving context about the project. It is easy to read while highlighting the most important aspects of the new telescope. However, because of its short length, it is not specific about details of studies to be done using the telescope. Much more information can be found on NASA's website. For example, the telescope is designed to examine objects in the most distant parts of the universe, such as very early galaxies, which is why it uses the infrared part of the spectrum. It can also be used to study planets in our solar system, too. Readers who want to go more in depth with the topic would probably want to also explore NASA's website pages about the telescope. Overall I found this article to be very informative.
Kieran McBride
ReplyDeleteCurrent Event 3
Bruno did a great job reviewing this article and was very descriptive through it all. In the beginning Bruno mentions what the topic is right away and some interesting facts about the JWST. What I mentioned above is what Bruno did really well, he was able to provide important facts about the JWST like it’s price which is 10 billion dollars! Throughout his article you can see a variety of numbers showing how big this project really was. Another thing that Bruno did well was taking evidence directly from the article itself, he does this on multiple occasions and takes good quotes that he explains thoroughly to support himself.
While Bruno did a really good job overall he was missing one thing. He didn’t put his own input in, he kind of just gave us this information without giving us his opinion. He also didn’t really have a claim about the article he wrote about. This ties to what I said before when I said he didn’t give us his opinion on the matter which I think is one of the most important parts of a review.
Overall Bruno did a great job, he had plenty of evidence except he didn;t have a claim to back in the first place, don’t get me wrong he still captivated me but he was just giving us numbers at certain points. Also I took a look at the article he wrote about and it was very interesting and appealing.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-will-launch-into-orbit-early-winter-180978727/
Isadora Schmidt (Part 1)
ReplyDeleteCitations:
Gamillo, Elizabeth. “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December.” Smithsonian Magazine, September 21, 2021.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-will-launch-into-orbit-early-winter-180978727/
https://bhscorechem.blogspot.com/2021/09/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-will.html
Bruno Kahraman did a review on the article, “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December” by Elizabeth Gamillo and while reading his review there were many things that he did well. One of the things Bruno did well in his review was the way he organized the summary of the article he read. His review says, “The article begins with some context on the JWST's predecessor… The article then moves on to talk about the scale of the JWST as a project.” (Kahraman). Throughout his summary, every time the article moves on to talk about something new he starts the sentence with transition words to help the reader understand everything that is being said. Another thing that Bruno did well was putting lots of statistics in his review of the article he read. The review says, “The JWST was originally envisioned in 1996 and has taken 25 years to finally complete. The construction also took place in 28 states and cost roughly $10 billion.” (Kahraman). All of these numbers show the reader how big and important this project really is to NASA and evolution in space technology. This also shows that everything he’s writing about the article is true and not something he could have just made up on the spot. One last thing that Bruno did well in his review was the way he wrapped up his summary of the article. His review says, “Scientists have many questions that this space telescope can answer, however it is more than likely that this space telescope will also uncover things previously unknown and not yet imagined.” (Kahraman). This ending to his summary is very informative about how much knowledge this new telescope can bring to us about space and how it has the power to give scientists lots more information about space. This ending also makes the reader wonder how much scientists don’t know about the galaxy we all live in and how much more we can learn about it with this new telescope.
Although Bruno did many great things in his review there were a few instances where his writing could have been improved to make his review better. One of the things that could be improved is he never told the reader his own perspective about the article. For most of his review he explained what the article he read was all about and gave an amazing summary and then said what he liked and disliked about the article and never showed his viewpoint. His review would have been more interesting if maybe in the second paragraph he told the reader what he thought about the article, maybe answer some questions like weather he thought the telescope was as revolutionary as the article makes it seem or say how well he thought the author conveyed her message about this new piece of technology to an average reader. Another thing that could be improved was the way Bruno ended his review of the article he read. In his review Bruno ended everything like this, “Overall I found this article to be very informative.” (Kahraman). Having this sentence at the end of his review made it seem like his review was cut short and he had more to say but he didn’t write it down and I think it would’ve been much better if Bruno finished the final sentence.
Isadora Schmidt (Part 2)
ReplyDeleteI thought that overall, Bruno did a very good job on his review of the article, “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December.” by Elizabeth Gamillo. One of the things that made me want to read his review was the title, I am kind of interested in space and the vast universe we all live in so when I saw a title that included companies like NASA that I know are well connected to astronomy, I was hooked. While reading Bruno’s review one of the things that seemed crazy to me was how many different features the scientists could add to this telescope. The review states, “One of the harder problems for designers was to fold up the space telescope inside a rocket to take it into space. The article says, "’The segmented mirrors that weigh 46 pounds each also needed to fold origami-style so that they could fit inside the rocket and later bloom open once it reaches its destination.’" (Kahraman). Knowing that NASA had so much money, time and effort put into this project to make the telescope as good as it can become is quite amazing, this shows that this telescope could revolutionize the way scientists see space forever.
It was very enjoyable to read Bruno’s review of the article, “NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December”. This is the case for multiple reasons. Firstly, I really liked how Bruno moved the review along well, discussing what was written in chronological order. This helped the reader see from Bruno’s perspective a little more, and have some insight as to how reading the article felt to him. Also, Bruno is very precise in his paragraphs, going into detail about even the smallest things, such as the specific numbers in the article. For example, “The JWST was originally envisioned in 1996 and has taken 25 years to finally complete.” (Kahraman). Lastly, Bruno did a great job towards the end of the review, where he explained that if people who read his review wanted to learn more about the topic, they could find some great articles on NASA’s website. This motivates the reader to have more interest in the review and its topic.
ReplyDeleteWhile Bruno’s review was very interesting and well-written overall, there were a couple of things that he could have added or altered to improve his writing. For example, in his first paragraph, Bruno says, “Not only that, but the project took a huge amount of manpower to complete.” (Kahraman) While this does satisfy the purpose of the sentence, (to convey the effort that the project required), a better choice of words would be “effort” or “human strength” as opposed to “manpower”. It’s safe to assume that people of different genders were working on this development, so the term “manpower” wouldn’t necessarily be correct to use. Also, I think that the review would have been more engaging if Bruno had used a better variety of words, or used some more adjectives in his writing. As it is, while his writing is grammatically correct, nothing stands out to the reader other than numbers and statistics. To draw the reader in, Bruno should try to use powerful words that will captivate an audience.
All in all, this was a very insightful piece of writing by Bruno, and it was a fantastic review. It changed my perception of space research and advancement quite a bit. Of course, I knew to some extent that space exploration and development was a difficult task and that a lot of preparation, time, and effort was vital to the success of our research and projects like this one. Until now, though, I don’t think I fully comprehended the number of calculations that have to be done and specialists that have to work with NASA until I read Bruno’s review. It really changes the reader’s view about how intellectually advanced space exploration officials are.
Victoria McEnroe
ReplyDelete10/8/21
Mr. Ippolito
Current Event Comment 4
Original article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-will-launch-into-orbit-early-winter-180978727/
Magazine, Smithsonian. “NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch into Orbit in December.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 21 Sept. 2021, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-will-launch-into-orbit-early-winter-180978727/.
Link to review: https://bhscorechem.blogspot.com/2021/09/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-will.html#comment-form
Three aspects well-done in this current event review were the clearly written summary, good visuals and the inclusion of a way to further learn about the topic. To start, the summary, or first paragraph, was very well written. I perfectly understood what the JWST was and it was impressive that the writer of this review was able to make his writing so organized and concise. Next, the visuals given were very helpful. The writer did a very good job describing what the JWST looks like, including details on its size and color. Finally, I really enjoyed the final paragraph where the writer not only stated a problem with the article, but also a solution to the problem. The writer explained that the article was too short and lacked information on any tests or recent studies done using the JWST. Rather than just leaving this as a complaint, the writer recommended that those who want to know more should visit NASA’s website. I really appreciated the effort the writer made to find a solution to the problem he observed.
Though I found this was a very well-done review, there are two recommendations I could make. The writer could have done a better job choosing which article he wanted to review. He explained that one down-side to the article was it’s short length, so in the future, I would suggest finding a longer article with more information to work with. Another area of improvement would be in the final paragraph. The writer explains that the article lacked research on studies done and that in order to learn more about these studies, it is recommended that people check out NASA’s website. I would have liked to see an example of a study from NASA’s website to demonstrate the usefulness of checking it out.
Since I took earth science last year, I learned a lot about astronomy. I really enjoyed learning about aspects of astronomy like the creation of galaxies, so I find the JWST super cool. The JWST will teach scientists a ton more about space and this knowledge will spread to interested students in future years.
Simon Mueller
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
10/19/21
It was very enjoyable to read Bruno’s review of the article “NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Will Launch Into Orbit in December.” Bruno did a great job reviewing this article and explaining the article very well. He did very well at explaining the topic. Right from the start, Bruno mentions what the topic is about right away. He did very well providing facts and evidence about the topic. He also did a good job of the flow of his review. Bruno moved the review along well, discussing what was written in order.
While Bruno did a good job overall he still has some room for improvement. In the last paragraph he mentions that the article didn’t have enough research on studies done and that in order to learn more about these studies, it is recommended that people check out NASA’s website. I think Bruno should have given an example of a study from NASA’s website to demonstrate the usefulness of checking it out and also proving the article’s statement to be correct. Another thing I would suggest is for him to share his thoughts on the article a little more. He didn’t really explain his take too much on the article.
Overall Bruno did a great job, he had plenty of evidence and explained the article very well. This article has made me more interested in the topic and will make me want to read more about this.