NASA has announced that it has successfully aligned the mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope almost three months after launch. NASA’s new telescope looked at distant stars after alignment and recorded a dazzling photo.
The image from the James Webb Space Telescope last day revealed that 18 hexagonal mirrors 1.6 million kilometers from Earth are working together. Officials at NASA said this image was a test shot, but performed better than expected.
Star photograph taken by James Webb Space Telescope
James Webb Space Telescope examines the depths of space with the help of 18 gold-plated hexagonal mirrors. But for all these mirrors to act as one mirror, they must be aligned with extraordinary precision—in nanometer adjustments.
When the Observatory released its first images in February, the mirrors were not yet aligned and the images were blurry. The new test shot, served from NASA, is dazzlingly beautiful for a star 1.6 million kilometers away, though the alignment process isn’t finished.
Photo recorded by the James Webb Space Telescope showing the bright star 2MASS J17554042+6551277. At a press conference at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the scientist responsible for the telescope, Jane Rigby, said:
“This is one of the clearest images you can get from a telescope of this size. The performance of the telescope so far has given us what we wanted.”
But the first scientifically valuable images won’t arrive until late June or early July.
The James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the approximately 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, was launched last December and reached its intended orbit in January. Last month, NASA looked at a much closer star with 18 separate images of mirror fragments.
What do you think of the star photograph taken by the James Webb Space Telescope? Do not forget to share your views with us in the comments section or on the SDN Forum.
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