So is there any reason not to point this at Proxima Centauri b, like, ASAP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri_b

I don't know about Proxima Centauri b, but they'll be spending around 25% of "Cycle 1" (the first 6,000 hours of science) working on exoplanets, don't worry:

"Over the coming year, researchers will use spectroscopy to analyze the surfaces and atmospheres of several dozen exoplanets, from small rocky planets to gas- and ice-rich giants. Nearly one-quarter of Webb’s Cycle 1 observation time is allocated to studying exoplanets and the materials that form them." - https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-...

WASP-96b has an orbit that passes in front of its star, Proxima Centauri b doesn't.

An obvious target for the coronagraph for regular imaging, but there's no way to get a transmission spectrum of its atmosphere.

How long would we likely have to wait for another more distant star in our galaxy to pass behind it from our perspective?

Prox c. has a screamin' hot proper motion, as you'd expect from it's proximity, so it's moving across the celestial sphere at a pretty good clip.

The real problem is that Prox c. b is only 0.04 AU out from its host star. So the absorption spectra for a star lined up with the planet is going to be pretty well contaminated with light from Prox c. You could imagine various schemes for moving around the observer for the best angle or big occultation disks, but at a certain point it's going to be easier to just fly a probe over and sample the atmosphere directly.

1150 light years away! Imagine how much more details can be detected for stuff within 50 light years.

Really, they should be already building 2nd James Webb. I am sure even 10 of them would get 100% utilization for their whole lifetime. I can only imagine what kind of needless political game is happening around prioritization of time slots for it.

Or start working on next-gen, bigger, more resilient etc. It costs peanuts compared to any significant CERN upgrade and we have so much room to progress in astronomy (aka understanding our home, this universe) just by getting more data and resolution.

I fear there won't be any more JWSTs at all. People are already bitching about how much it cost and that all it does is make pretty pictures right here in this thread and there were many times that it came within a hair of having its budget slashed.

Super happy we have one JWST, and I hope fervently that it will outlast its original mission by a large fraction, every sign right now points in that direction.

> People are already bitching about how much it cost

I like to point out that Microsoft could have paid for seven JWSTs (development costs and all) with what they paid for one Activision.

Now imagine the funding for all the spy satellite programs over the past few decades...

Hubble definitely piggybacked on the defense applications, for JWST that isn't the case.

The next NASA space telescope is The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope - https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/the-nancy-grace-roman-spac....