The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) has revealed its first crisp image, and it is a stunner – a magnificent glimpse of a flashing orange star that is focused with such precision that it defies physics.
According to NASA officials, the image demonstrates that the telescope’s 18 individual mirrors are now precisely aligned and working as one, and the shot is much better than scientists imagined it would be.
On Wednesday, the Webb team unveiled a snapshot of the Milky Way star, named 2MASS J17554042+6551277, and situated almost 2,000 light-years distant (March 16).
It was photographed using a red filter to increase the visual contrast between the star and the darkness of space, and it shows dozens of additional stars and distant galaxies in the background.
According to BBC News, the image demonstrates that the new space telescope’s optical systems are currently performing better than scientists and engineers had planned.
“We’ve done a highly in-depth analysis of the photographs we’re getting, and so far, the performance is as excellent as, if not better than, our most optimistic forecast.”
According to NASA, the image is the result of the “fine phasing” stage of mirror alignments, in which every optical parameter is tested to ensure that the telescope can properly capture light from distant objects.
Mirror positioning
Feinberg is in charge of aligning the space telescope’s 18 hexagonal beryllium mirrors so that they act as a single almost hexagonal reflector with a diameter of 21.3 feet (6.5 meters).
The design allows the mirror system to be folded and fit within a rocket fairing before launch, in contrast to Webb’s predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which has only one primary mirror that is roughly 7.8 feet (2.4 m) broad.
Webb’s first shot, revealed last month, showed 18 photos of a single star in a hexagonal pattern — one from each individual mirror, which had by then been approximately oriented to point in the same direction.
According to experts at the news conference, the new image indicates that the unfolded mirrors have been adjusted to within nanometers, resulting in a single image in sharp focus.
“We have now achieved what is known as ‘diffraction restricted alignment’ of the telescope,” Marshall Perrin, Webb deputy scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, stated during a news conference.
When light passes through a lens, it creates a core picture and then a bullseye-like circle of “diffraction rings” surrounding it. The diffraction limit, which is determined by the wavelength, lens power, and distance from the item being measured, describes the distance between two objects or features before a telescope with a perfect lens can’t tell them apart.
And the most recent test shot is already superior to anything Hubble could have generated.
“Today’s engineering shots are as clear and sharp as Hubble’s images, because they’re at a wavelength of light that Hubble cannot see,” said Jane Rigby, operations program scientist for Webb at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Photographs in the future
According to NASA, the next step of the mission will be to fine-tune the alignment and bring several of the space telescope’s equipment online.
The Near-Infrared Spectrograph will examine the light spectra of distant objects to learn more about their physical properties, such as temperature and chemical composition; the Mid-Infrared Instrument, which is both a camera and a spectrograph that captures images.
in wavelengths the human eye cannot see; and the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, a highly precise instrument that will search for and investigate orbiting exoplanets.
The following step will take around six weeks, followed by a final alignment stage in which the Webb team will correct any leftover positioning mistakes in the mirror segments.
The Webb team says it is on track to finish work on the telescope’s entire optical system by early May, followed by another two months of instrument preparation; the space telescope could begin producing its first full high-resolution imagery and science data in the summer, according to the statement.
NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency collaborated on the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope. It’s named for former NASA Administrator James E. Webb, who oversaw the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space missions.
After years of technical delays, the space telescope will be deployed on December 25, 2021. It arrived in late January at the sun-Earth system’s L2 Lagrange point, some 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometres) distant, where gravity balances out centrifugal forces.
Webb is expected to be able to observe distant objects up to 100 times fainter than the Hubble Space Telescope and to endure 10 to 20 years, until the fuel for the thrusters that maintain it in place runs out.
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