James Webb Telescope captures stunning image of starlight

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken a giant step forward in its mission to unlock the mysteries of the universe.

The world’s premier space observatory has successfully completed a series of crucial steps to align its 18 segments of gold mirrors. Having verified this milestone from Webb’s list, the telescope team hopes that the observatory may even exceed the goals it was supposed to achieve.

Webb will be able to peer inside the atmospheres of exoplanets and observe some of the first galaxies created after the universe began, observing them through infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.

On March 11, Webb completed “fine phasing,” a critical stage that ensures Webb’s optical capabilities are working as they should. During testing, the team found no problems and determined that Webb can observe light from distant objects and feed that light into the science instruments aboard the observatory.

For the test, Webb focused on a star called 2MASS J17554042+6551277. A red filter was used to show the contrast. Webb’s observation capabilities are so sensitive that individual galaxies and stars can also be seen behind the star in the image.

“The images are focused as well as the laws of physics allow,” said Marshall Perrin, deputy scientist for Webb telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “But as we were focusing on these bright stars, we couldn’t help but see the rest of the universe coming into focus behind them, to see the more distant stars and galaxies appear.”

While the first high-resolution images Webb collects of the cosmos aren’t expected until late June, new test images released by NASA on Wednesday show that Webb can use the individual segments of his mirror like a giant. 6.5 meters and capture the light of a single star.

“The engineering images we’ve seen today are as sharp as the images that Hubble can take, but they’re at a wavelength of light that’s totally invisible to humans, so this is making the invisible universe snap into very sharp focus. , very sharp,” said Jane Rigby, Webb operations project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The mirror is so large that it had to be folded to fit inside the rocket for its December 25 launch. After reaching a 1.6 million kilometer orbit of Earth in January, Webb began the careful process of unfolding and aligning his mirror.

“More than 20 years ago, the Webb team set out to build the most powerful telescope anyone has ever put into space and came up with an audacious optical design to meet demanding science goals,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission in Washington. . “Today we can say that the design will deliver.”

While the process is ongoing, the team is encouraged to see Webb perform even better than expected. Now that the fine phase stage is complete, the Infrared Camera, which serves as the telescope’s primary imager, is aligned to the mirror.

Webb also captured a new “selfie” using a lens focused on capturing images of the actual mirror segments. The selfie shows the alignment of the mirror segments as they capture starlight in unison.

The completion of the thin phase and all the critical steps before it also bring a sigh of relief to the team.

“All the sleepless nights I had and the worries I had are all behind me now,” said Zurbuchen. “There is still a mountain to climb, but we are climbing this mountain.”

In the coming months, the team will complete the last steps of the alignment process and ensure that all scientific instruments are calibrated.

“We are exactly where we thought we would be at this point, about three months after launch and this sets us up to complete the remainder of commissioning within six months of launch and move into science starting this summer,” Perrin said.

When Webb is fully operational, it “will move into a very demanding year of science operations,” Rigby said.