Great Eyes, Lidless.

“The biggest building boom in the history of astronomy is upon us. In Chile and Hawaii and in space, astronomers are getting powerful telescopes that dwarf the current state-of-the-art instruments. When the mountain blasting and the mirror polishing are all done, we will have the clearest and most detailed views of outer space ever.”

By way of Follow Me Here, Gizmodo looks at five massive telescopes that will change the game, including the James Webb Space Telescope, a.k.a. Hubble 2.0. “Since blowing past its initial budget and launch data, NASA promises the ambitious project is on-track for 2018. And it better, because astronomers are eagerly awaiting its data.”

Into the Murky Deep.

“It is a smudge of light only a tiny fraction of the size of our own Milky Way galaxy, and it existed when the universe was only 480 million years old…If confirmed, the discovery takes astronomers deep into an era when stars and galaxies were first lighting up the universe and burning their way out of a primordial fog known as the dark ages.“

From a few days ago: The Hubble — also the subject of an excellent IMAX-3D movie I saw on Saturday — (probably) finds the oldest, farthest galaxy yet discovered. “Spectroscopic observations with the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope, however, are needed to cement the identification of the smudge as a galaxy…The Webb telescope, which is expected to be launched later this decade once NASA figures out how to pay for it, has been designed to find these primordial galaxies and thus illuminate the dark ages.”

Twenty Years of Hubble.

“Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.” Let’s not forget Hubble too: As of today, Humankind’s first great orbital telescope turns 20. And to think we’re only at the beginning… [Greatest hits | A brief history of orbiting observatories | what’s next.]