The James Webb Space Telescope already exists Fully utilized, At its definite orbit and temperature close to operation. But it can take months for mission controllers to assemble the 18 hexagonal parts of their glass to work together.
The Pot The first image created by the NIRCam nearby infrared camera used to measure web telescopes was released on Friday. This may appear to be a blurry photo of an array of stars, but the light from the same star is reflected 18 times by the glass areas.
In a process that began on February 2, scientists pointed to the heat HD 84406 star. This isolated star in the Ursa Major galaxy was chosen because it was easily recognizable and there were no similar bright objects nearby, which helped reduce background interference.
The web star observed the star at 156 different levels and used NIRCam’s 10 detectors to create a total of 1,560 images. The mission controllers received over 54 gigabytes of data and made a special mosaic to start the glass alignment.
The image above only shows the centerpiece of the original mosaic, which is over 2 billion pixels, but all 18 sections of light are concentrated on this centerpiece. Fits Scientists’ expectations and an excellent starting point The Alignment process.
NASA engineers and opticians will use this image to determine the position of each unit Of glass Behind Telescope deployment and retrieval Functional alignment Scientific activities.
Used by scientists And a Student lens Inside the NIRCam tool Take selfies from 18 glass sections. Only these types of images will be captured During the alignment process, they will be the last photos We see from a telescope.
NIRCam is one of them Four scientific instruments On the web. It is designed to operate at -233 C, however It is currently at a high temperature, so its images are still visual artifacts. As the telescope constantly cools and aligns its glasses, Web images are clear, detailed, and complex. The first science fiction films are expected from the telescope Will come This summer.
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