James Webb Space Telescope Detects Its First Signal

Launched into the depths of space on December 24, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope has reached the L2 point, which is the observation point 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth, after a 1-month journey, and has reached the location where it will illuminate the corners of the universe that we have not seen before. had settled. It was reported that the telescope, which will complete its orbit of the Sun every 180 days, will start its first scientific studies after 6 months.

Exciting news has come from the team behind the telescope, which has begun its three-month alignment period, according to a statement this week by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Webb team announced that it detected the first signal of the space telescope.

The first images from the telescope won’t be pretty.

According to the statement made by NASA, the Webb team saw the first photons of starlight detected by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and passing through the telescope.

The images that the telescope will begin to send to Earth in the coming period will not be very clear and focused at first; however, scientists will fine-tune the telescope over time. NASA; Ball Aerospace reports that a team of engineers and scientists from the Space Telescope Science Institute and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has rehearsed the telescope’s alignment and is ready to go.

In the reports published by NASA, it is stated that the images that the telescope will take in this process will not be very ‘beautiful’, unlike the ones that will be taken in the summer; However, it was noted that these photographs were very important to prepare the telescope for ‘science’.