The Webb Space Telescope in December did not send back too many photos because it has been intermittently entering safe mode since December 7. Although scientific operations have resumed on the 20th, NASA has only recently reported the failure of the telescope.
The Webb Space Telescope can image the universe at infrared and near-infrared wavelengths. Since its official scientific observation in July this year, it has taken countless beautiful photos, such as seeing more pillars of dust and pillars of newborn stars.
However, this telescope with a cost of up to tens of billions of dollars also faces multiple software and hardware threats. For example, one of the primary mirrors was hit by a high-energy micrometeoroid. The search direction of the front of the mirror is turned away from the micrometeoroid avoidance area.
This month, Webb has another hiccup. On December 7, due to a software failure triggered by the attitude control system that controls the orientation of the observatory, the Webb telescope has been intermittently in safe mode for the past two weeks, unable to conduct scientific observations.
At present, the observatory and instruments are in good condition, and an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 7469 was released immediately yesterday. This galaxy is 220 million light-years away from us. There are sharp diffraction peaks spreading from the center of the galaxy, just like a Christmas picture Cosmic greeting card.
(First image source: NASA)