Seriously, that's it?
But really, that only makes the telescope's groundbreaking observations — including someWhile 68 gigs may sound puny, there's a good reason it's that small. For one, the SSD, a "Solid State Recorder" to be precise, had to go through an extensive certification process, since it's meant to withstand some grueling conditions — tremendous amounts of radiation in particular — a million miles from Earth.
Due to that radiation, in fact, experts predict those 68 gigabytes will shrink to only 60 gigabytes of usable storage over the telescope's ten year lifespan, according toThen there's the fact that 68 gigabytes may only be enough for 24 hours of data gathering — but the telescope has opportunities several times a day to downlink that data back to Earth.
To pull it off, the space telescope makes use of the Deep Space Network, a worldwide network that connects to a number of US spacecraft, to beam data back to Earth. That means it will also share these data transfer frequencies with other craft, including NASA's Parker Solar Probe and even Voyager probes.
It's wild to think that one of the most groundbreaking pieces of human-built machinery only relies on just over 60 gigBut we're not the experts who put it all together, so who are we to judge? As its most recent observations go to show, the system is working just fine — and we can't wait to see what it will beam back to Earth next.
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