The primordial fires just after the Big Bang. The atmospheres of distant planets around another star. The towering pillars of interstellar dust glowing brightly in the vastness of space. That is what the new images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have offered us. These new glimpses deep into space (and time) were important enough that even the President got involved in presenting the show to the global public. The JWST is a technological marvel that will change our understanding of the universe.
Which leads me to my question: what would it take for the Earth Sciences to have an observatory/instrument that could rival the JWST in terms of new data and capture of the public's imagination? Astronomers have it easy (to some degree) as the images that a space telescope like the JWST take are aesthetically breathtaking (at least the ones that they highlight). They represent views that no human could have if it wasn't for the JWST and take us to places that no human will likely ever visit.
Yet, the Earth Sciences don't seem to have this same penchant for large, expensive projects like the physicists and astronomers. Is it a lack of ambition for such things or is it something else about the nature of the discipline that means that there is no equivalent or potential equivalent to the JWST?
