For the First Time, The James Webb Telescope Successfully Targets a Cosmos Object

KOMPAS.com – Main mirror telescope outer space James Webb fully aligned and performs better than designed. For the first time, this telescope has succeeded in targeting cosmic objects in the sky universe.

This 6.5 meter wide mirror consists of 18 hexagonal segments. Aligning them into one smooth reflecting surface has been one of the main tasks the Webb control team has had to tackle since the launch on December 25 last year.

The alignment process, which involves adjusting the position and tilt of 18 segments with nanometer-scale precision, has been completed.

However, even though the process isn’t finished yet, the mission telescope James Webb worth 10 billion is the most complex and most expensive observatory ever launched.

In addition, the James Webb telescope has succeeded in producing images that have astounded scientists.

“The telescope’s performance so far is everything we dared hope for,” said project scientist Webb at the Goddard Space Flight Center NASA in Maryland Jane Rigby as quoted from SpaceThursday (17/3/2022).

Also read: James Webb Space Telescope Successfully Orbit Near The Sun

He added that the images that the James Webb telescope has captured so far are as sharp as the Hubble telescope can take, but are at wavelengths that are completely invisible to the Hubble telescope.

“So this makes the visible universe turn very focused, very sharp,” Rigby said.

The process of aligning the mirrors of the James Webb telescope

When the mirror alignment process began in early January, the ground team pointed the telescope at HD 84406. At the start of the alignment process, the telescope sent 18 images of the stars, with each main mirror segment acting as its own telescope.

This image, released on March 16, 2022, shows a bright yellow star emitting a stream of light across the universe.

However, what’s more interesting lies in the background, which shows dozens of dots and dots, each galaxy unreachable before.

These distant galaxies made the first pictures taken by space telescope James Webb referred to this as the inner field. Such photographs, focusing on a small part of the sky, aim to capture the most distant objects in the universe.

Also read: James Webb Telescope Successfully Photographed Its First Star, What’s It Like?

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