The James Webb Space Telescope does not have any cameras or cameras designed to photograph its appearance. NASA thus had to rely on sensors, and this would be the case even if there was a problem with the decomposition of the telescope and it would have to start solving what had failed and how to fix it.
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We’ve dealt with this topic before, and we’ve learned that Webb doesn’t have any such cameras simply because they would make already complex devices even more complicated. NASA has Webb equipped with the necessary mechanical, thermal and electrical sensors that would be needed to detect where the error occurred. In addition, the cameras would become another unwelcome source of heat, which on the shady side with all the important hardware is not needed in the slightest and would also have to be able to operate at temperatures below -200 ° C, ie they would have to be specially developed.
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But Webb still managed to take a selfie, even if only the main mirror, so we can at least look at how nicely laid out it is. NASA used a special lens in the NIRCam device, which was created for this purpose, or to verify the correct calibration of individual mirror segments.
As we can see, only one of them was correctly set at the time of shooting to reflect the light of the HD 84406 star to the NIRCam lens. waiting for the correct adjustment. Of course, simply lighting a given segment is not enough to verify its correct settings, it is just a matter of quickly verifying that the procedure is on the right track.
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star HD 84406 in 18 copies of individual mirror segments
The goal was to get the light of the star HD 84406 into all eighteen mirror segments, which NASA does not need a particularly detailed and sharp image when verified by NIRCam. In addition, NIRCam itself was operating at a significantly higher than target temperature at the time, and NASA states that once Webbu’s devices “cool down” well, the images from them will be much better. After all, the work on putting the telescope into operation is far from over and will continue for many more months. We will see the first really high-quality film sometime at the beginning of summer.
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