NASA says the James Webb Space Telescope is now ‘fully aligned’ when it shared this first image. It is a beautiful star.
NASA shared a stunning image of a star from the James Webb Space Telescope on March 16, and announced that the space telescope is now fully aligned for operation. NASA also highlights that this is the highest resolution infrared image ever taken in space. The James Webb telescope was launched by NASA in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on December 25, 2021, a Christmas Day. The James Webb telescope, with its greatly improved infrared sensitivity and resolution, aims to observe distant objects in space that the Hubble Telescope cannot.
“Over 20 years ago, the Webb team set out to build the most powerful telescope anyone has ever put in space, and have come up with a bold optical design to meet rigorous scientific goals. Today, we can say that the design will succeed,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
The James Webb Space Telescope is now fully aligned
Last week, NASA scientists tasked with the James Webb Telescope completed a ‘well-phased’ alignment. To conduct the test, the telescope’s 18 segments of hexagonal mirrors were perfectly aligned to focus on a single star far away from Earth. The result is the stunning picture you see. NASA stated in its press release, “Every optical parameter tested and tested performs at, or above, expectations. The observatory was able to successfully collect light from distant objects and deliver it to its instruments without problems.”
The James Webb telescope was the first telescope in space with a segmented main mirror design. Its 21-foot wide main mirror is made up of 18 hexagonal, beryllium mirror segments. The finished structure is too big to even fit inside the rocket and has to be folded to launch. As it is deployed in space, each segment is unfolded and adjusted – in the nanometer range – to form a single mirror surface.
Lee Feinberg, Element Manager of the Webb Optical Telescope at NASA.
According to NASA, over the next six weeks, the James Webb Telescope team will complete the remaining alignment steps before moving on to the final preparation for the scientific instrument. The next steps will include aligning the Near Infrared Spectrophotometer, Medium Infrared Instrument and Near Infrared Imager, and the Slit-free Spectrophotometer.
