Work on aligning the James Webb Space Telescope’s giant mirror has gone so well that the mission team believes its optical performance will be able to “meet or exceed the scientific goals for which the observatory was built.” .
This is the best possible news for the most powerful space telescope ever built as it prepares to peer into space to learn more about the origins of the universe while searching for distant planets that could support life.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched towards the end of December 2021 on a mission expected to last at least 10 years.
This week, the Webb team reported the successful completion of a mirror alignment process known as “fine phasing,” which verifies that the telescope’s optics meet or exceed expectations.
No critical problems were discovered, nor were there any measurable contaminations or blockages in Webb’s optical path, the team said, adding that its tests showed the observatory could successfully collect light from distant objects and relay it to its instruments.
The excellent news paves the way for the telescope’s exploration of the universe, which is expected to begin in about three months from its orbit about a million miles from Earth.
NASA posted a Webb Telescope selfie (below) this week that shows all 18 segments on the 21-foot-wide mirror glowing brightly as they collect light from a single star during alignment procedures.
Looks sharp, Webb!
A special lens inside the NIRCam instrument captured "selfie" of Webb’s mirror segments and verifies their alignment with NIRCam. The segments are bright because they all collect light together from the same star. https://t.co/RPL4OItJNA #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/jSrupf7i4a
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) March 16, 2022
“More than 20 years ago, the Webb team set out to build the most powerful telescope anyone has ever put into space and developed a bold optical design to achieve challenging scientific goals.” called Thomas Zurbuchen, Deputy Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “Today we can say that design will convince.”
The ambitious $10 billion project is a joint effort by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, with the new telescope set to complement the work of the hugely successful Hubble Telescope, which has been exploring space for decades and producing stunning images sends back for the way.
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