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Janitor Joe riding the James Webb deep space telescope
Janitor Joe!, “dreams of leaving Mother Earth flying through the universe”. The very first song from WHY? album released for the MLT Clubbers ears, it’s spirit is with the James Webb space craft exploring into deep space of the observable universe showing us places humanity has never seen before. Interestingly Janitor Joe and James Webb were both released the same year in 2021.
Whenever I see news of the James Webb’s latest discoveries, I can’t help but hear Janitor Joe in my head, “maybe Joe has retired looking down on Mother Earth flying through the universe”. And it is interesting times these days in Cosmology, as James Webb shatters all previously held theories of the universe. For example the 6 mature massive galaxies discovered in a region of space where there can’t be massive mature galaxies like these based on the Big Bang Theory. Now there are all kinds of theories starting to surface about other universes and infinite Big Bangs that preceded the latest one to explain these new galaxies.
It’s all proving we don’t know everything, and Janitor Joe is on an amazing adventure charting new places “to boldly go where no (one) has gone before”.
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9 Replies
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I love MLT’s interest and curiosity about space as depicted in the WHY? album cover artwork. They even pretended to be aliens when they were little with one of their friends! 😊
Here is one of my favourite MLT cover videos.
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I enjoyed hearing Janitor Joe was originally Lisa’s idea. I love that song. I’m wondering if Joe’s up there right now, wrenching with his channel lock, laughing as he sends these weird JWST pics back to earth. Maybe that’s what he was up to.
It has that awesome guitar lick right off the bat that always has me dancing. And my recent look into what viral songs have in common suggests, duh, dancing. Makes sense to me. Music is a total body experience.
I’ve always been interested in Astronomy. This is quite a time period we’re living in — Janitors going interstellar and the best music in the multiverse.
Astronomer is a great job, kind of like Economist. Facts are optional, but you get to pretend like you know what’s going on.
And it reminded me of something else…..Jai Guru Deva — Om
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I don’t have any MLT songs that aren’t my favorites, but Starman is also right up by the top for me among their covers.
Unbelievable, like a Duo Session on Mars. As I’ve said before, the genius of Bowie + the genius of the Twins.
Oscar for Best Picture and Best Cinematography.
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Yeah MLT’s version of Starman is just magical, pulls me right in every time.
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Hi Chris
That is such a beautiful song, what a genius songwriter John Lennon was. The lyrics are so amazing, captures the awe of gazing up at the universe looking back at you with a million eyes.
“Images of broken light
Which dance before me like
A million eyes, they call me on and on
Across the universe
Limitless undying love
Which shines around me
Like a million suns
And calls me on and on
Across the universe”
I’ve always been fascinated with astronomy, and if I had the time and freedom to do anything I wanted, studying and delving into astronomy would be one of them. There are so many endless questions when I look out into space, I always ask “WHY!” with passion.
I love the song Janitor Joe too, and you are right, makes me want to get up and dance when it comes on.
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You might find the TESS project interesting.
Most exoplanets are found when they transit in front of their star. During the time a planet orbits between its star and earth, the planet blocks a little of the light from the star so it’s slightly dimmer, so even though you can’t see much or any of the planet since the star is too bright, you still know it’s there.
But there are other reasons a star’s light can fluctuate too, and so far, the automated solutions they have for deciding which of these are actually planets are not as good at doing it as humans are. So NASA looked for volunteers to help find planets. That’s the TESS program.
Once they find a real planet, they can swing JWST and friends over to check it out in detail, and see if it’s got water, oxygen, etc., in the atmosphere, so maybe it’s got life.
Wouldn’t it be cool to be known as the person who found the first planet that had life on it? Small chance, sure, but even if they don’t find life on it, your name would be attached to that planet forever, since you found it.
I’m not sure this is still ongoing, but NASA does a lot of cool programs, and people can get involved sometimes.
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Chris
That would be pretty cool to have a newly discovered exo-planet named after you. It looks like TESS mission is expanded another 2 years to 2025. It’s astonishing what TESS and James Webb telescopes can deduce about a planets composition, masses, densities and atmospheric make up from just observations of “spectra of starlight absorbed by the planets atmosphere”… TESS’s setup of cameras to pan and observe a strip of the sky is impressive. It’s great TESS can work together with the James Webb telescope to investigate potential new exo-planets. Who knows what they will find in the next 2 years, as the James Webb continue to shatter previously held theories of our universe or now universes! Thanks for posting this cool video.
It will be interesting to see what Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds will discover (Lucy Spacecraft carrying instrumentation utilizing diamonds launched in 2021) with it’s mission expanding to 2033 as it tracks asteroids.
It’s amazing that maybe in centuries from now, if people in the distant future or aliens recover the Lucy Spacecraft expected to be drifting in space indefinitely, the Beatles will be one of the lasting recorded legacies of our humanity.
Onboard the spacecraft is a golden plaque that contains its launch date, the positions of the planets at the launch date, the continents of Earth at the time of launch, its nominal trajectory, and twenty speeches, poems, and song lyrics from people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Carl Sagan, The Beatles, and more. Because the spacecraft will not leave the Solar System or be intentionally crashed into a planetary body, there is a chance that future generations of humanity will be able to recover it.[32]
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Lucy is currently passing through the main asteroid belt in preparation for its next Earth flyby late next year. Just a few months ago it was decided to have it fly by a small main belt asteroid while it’s out there, so on November 1st of this year we’ll be getting our first views from Lucy of a new world!
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Hi David
That will be great to see a never before seen asteroid world in November. As more man made probes/telescopes get out there we are uncovering new worlds.
There is another theory emerging, based on observations of the distant areas of the universe by James Webb, that time is an illusion, an illusion created by limitations of the mind to comprehend the universe, but everything that ever was, is and will be is happening all at once. First Einstein discovers gravity curves space and time, and now James Webb may discover time is an illusion. Mind blowing.
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