Nasa James Webb Space Telescope sends back its first image
Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope has sent back its first images.
The blurry image appears to show 18 different blobs of starlight – though they are actually all the same star, shaken up because the pieces of mirror in the telescope are not yet properly aligned.
As such, the image is not only a major milestone in the rollout of a telescope that could one day reveal the ancient history of the universe and search for habitable alien planets.
It is also an important part of the alignment and focusing of the telescope, since engineers will use it to properly setup its view of the universe so that it can start that research.
Over the next month or so, Nasa’s engineers will adjust the telescope so that those 18 dots merge into one.
“The entire Webb team is ecstatic at how well the first steps of taking images and aligning the telescope are proceeding. We were so happy to see that light makes its way into NIRCam,” said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for the NIRCam instrument and regents professor of astronomy, University of Arizona.
