James Webb Takes Space Telescope ‘Selfie’

The excitement continues to increase with every new news from the James Webb Space Telescope, which was launched into space on December 24, 2021 to shed light on the darkest secrets of the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope, which reached the observation point 18 days ago after a month’s journey, detected the first star signal 6 days before that, and made us feel that this is just the beginning.

Following these developments, NASA reported that Webb took a ‘selfie’ on Friday. In addition, it was recorded that the telescope saw its first star.

James Webb Space Telescope’s selfie captivated the Webb team

Although NASA said in its previous statements that it is not possible for the telescope to take selfies, it seems that the telescope Looks like he’s decided to pamper his fans. Noting that the Webb team was previously unsure whether it was possible to obtain such an image using only starlight, Webb optical telescope element manager Lee Feinberg said in a statement that their reaction to Webb’s selfie was “Oh my God”.

“Even when we tested it in Houston, we didn’t have the starlight illuminating the main mirror in this configuration.”

Webb also photographed his first star

. ) In addition to all this, Webb obtained the first images of stars. The statement said that all these steps are part of the months-long process of aligning the telescope’s huge golden mirror, which is believed to begin to unravel the mysteries of the history of the universe by this summer.

In the image of 18 blurry white dots on a black background, each dot actually shows the same thing: bright in the Ursa Major constellation, HD84406, an isolated star. This photo actually represents a very important milestone for us. The image, with 18 dots captured by 18 separate parts of the l mirror, now provides a basis for scientists to align and focus these hexagonal segments.

will go back 13.5 billion years to study the first galaxies

Light detected by Webb passes through the segments to its secondary mirror, a round object at the tip of the telescope, and then to its secondary mirror. is reflected in the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) device, which is the main imaging device. University of Arizona astronomy professor Marcia Rieke, principal investigator of the NIRCam device, said in a statement that the entire Webb team was ecstatic at the progress of the first steps in image acquisition and alignment of the telescope.

The point reached in the image capture process, which began on February 2, with Webb pointing out different positions around the predicted position of the star, also indicates that the telescope is already relatively well positioned for final alignment. It is stated that the selfie we mentioned above was also taken to help this process.

Webb’s main mission, which involves using its high-resolution instruments to go back 13.5 billion years to reach the first generation galaxies formed after the Big Bang, will begin next summer. In addition, Webb; It will also study distant planets, known as exoplanets, to determine their origin, evolution and habitability.