The james webb space telescope has collected and sent to Earth the image of higher resolution in infrared that has ever been taken from space. What Webb has done, the telescope that will provide unprecedented data on the origin of the universe, represents the first unified photo of a distant star and has done so since its car park 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. It is not so much the importance of the image, but the fact that the telescope has successfully completed its alignment and calibration phase of its 18 mirrors hexagonal gilts so that they act as one when they collect the light that reaches them.
Webb’s first photo
Also, on February 18, the Gaia European Astronomical Observatory photographed by first time to the webb. In the image, in which the two devices were separated by a million kilometers, it is shown at telescope in the center (just as a point) and the other light points correspond to cosmics rays during the exhibition.
the european observatory share position with the Webb around Lagrange point 2 (L2), even though it arrived eight years earlier. Gaia’s calibration engineer, Juanma Martin Fleitasreceived the images and managed to identify Webb in them, who already has his first photo.
infrared spectrum
The telescope is a space observatory developed through the collaboration of twenty countries. It has been jointly built and operated by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
What distinguishes the James Webb from previous generations of telescopes is that it will observe the universe in the infrared spectrumso you will be able to observe the first galaxies, the ones closest to the moment of the Big Bang.
Marshall Perrin, deputy scientist at the Webb telescope, has indicated that until now images of a few colors could be captured, but, thanks to the new observatory, they will be able to be “thousands of colors at the same time”.
The project will also serve as “pioneer of a new how to build telescopeswhich will hold for future generations of observatories,” according to Lee Feinberg, element manager for Webb’s optical telescope.
Alignment complete
This telescope is the first in space to use segmented primary mirrorsgiven that due to its size 6.5 meters it was too large to fit inside a rocket and had to be folded for launch and then unfolded in space to form a single mirror surface.
NASA has assured that it is expected that Begginings of may all aspects of the optical telescope alignment and later they will dedicate about two months to the preparation of the Scientific instruments.
With the culmination on March 11 of the critical calibration stage in aligning the telescope, the team has managed fully align Webb’s premier imager, the near infrared camerawith the observatory mirrors.
collect the light
After the success of this first key phase, the new space observatory is able to successfully collect the light from distant objects and send it to its instruments without mishap, NASA has highlighted.
An example of this is a image that has been sent from Webb and shows a star call 2MASS J17554042+6551277.
On February the telescope had already obtained its first imagesof lower quality and in this case of HD 84406, after taking off from Earth on December 25, 2021 and reaching its final position almost a month later.
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NASA has also released a photo of a ‘selfie’ del telescopio in which you see 18 segments the primary mirror collecting light of the same star in unison.
The largest space science observatory in the world is still missing several monthsIt’s to be ready to, as NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen pointed out in the briefing, to be able to “see the universe as we’ve never seen it before.”