The James Webb Space Telescope has obtained its first images of a star, which form a mosaic of 18 points of light because its main mirror, made up of as many hexagons, is not yet aligned or calibrated. The project team, where NASA participatessays she is “excited” with advances in the telescope that is intended to be an observatory in space to study the evolution of stars and galaxies.
Webb pointed to HD 84406, a bright, isolated star in the constellation Ursa Major, which was chosen because it is easily identifiable and has no bright stars nearby, which helps to reduce background interference.
The observatory arrived on January 24 at its definitive position, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, and is now in the process of completing the first phase of a process, which will take months, of aligning the main mirror using the near-infrared camera (NIRCam).
The image captured by the telescope is a mosaic of 18 randomly arranged points of starlight that reflect the star’s light off Webb’s secondary mirror and NIRCam’s detectors.
Over the next month, the telescope team will adjust the mirror segments until the 18 images are converted into a single image.
“The Webb team is ecstatic about how the first steps are being taken to image and align the telescope,” said Marcia Rieke, from the University of Arizona, USA.
The James Webb Space Telescope is a project developed jointly by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), with the purpose of placing an observatory in space to capture infrared radiation. The telescope should observe the formation of the first galaxies and stars, study the evolution of galaxies and record the processes of star and planet formation.
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