The $10 billion 18-mirror telescope also took a selfie.
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The photo is blurry, but it’s a big step forward. The James Webb Space Telescope has observed its first star, NASA announced on Friday February 11. The US space agency said in a statement that, as expected, the star appeared blurry and in 18 copies, as part of the process of aligning its main mirror.
James Webb had targeted a particularly bright star to make his job easier. These photons were immortalized on February 2, thanks to the scientific instrument called NIRCam. The 18 luminous points received correspond to the light reflected by the star in the 18 hexagonal segments which constitute the large main mirror. It is now a question of aligning them little by little so that they only produce a clear and single image. The process will take about a month and then it will have to be repeated with the other scientific instruments on board, which have not yet cooled down enough to use.
The telescope also took a selfie, again thanks to NIRCam: in a black and white image published by NASA, we can clearly see the 18 small mirrors, thanks to the light coming from the stars and reflecting on them.
Focus!
@NASAWebb‘s Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, recently became operational and captured this “selfie” of the telescope’s primary mirror. Webb will continue aligning its 18 mirrors over the next three months before it can #UnfoldtheUniverse: https://t.co/ppajknCrBm pic.twitter.com/ogx5OVe1Ue—NASA (@NASA) February 11, 2022
James Webb, who took off from French Guiana on December 25, is now 1.5 million km from Earth, having deployed in space during perilous maneuvers which had never been attempted before. Worth 10 billion dollars, it must in particular explore the formation of the first galaxies and the atmosphere of exoplanets in search of potentially habitable environments.