James Webb Space Telescope Sends Back First Image — And a Selfie

NASA had previously said a James Webb Space Telescope selfie wasn't possible, so the news comes as a welcome bonus for space fans.

By Agence France-Presse | Updated: 12 February 2022 11:24 IST

James Webb Space Telescope Sends Back First Image — And a Selfie

Photo Credit: NASA

The image of the star, captured 18 times, by the James Webb Space Telescope

Highlights

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched in December 2021
NASA had previously said a selfie wasn't possible for the JWST
James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful of its kind

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted its first star and captured a selfie, NASA announced Friday. The steps are part of the months-long process of aligning the observatory's enormous golden mirror that astronomers hope will begin unraveling the mysteries of the early Universe by this summer. The first picture sent back of the cosmos is far from stunning: 18 blurry white dots on a black background, all showing the same object: HD 84406 a bright, isolated star in the constellation Ursa Major.

However, it represents a major milestone. The 18 dots were captured by the primary mirror's 18 individual segments — and the image is now the basis for aligning and focusing those hexagonal pieces on the James Webb Space Telescope.

The light bounced off the segments to Webb's secondary mirror, a round object located at the end of long booms, and then to the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument — Webb's main imaging device.

OneWeb Deploys 34 Satellites, Takes In-Orbit Total Up to 428

"The entire Webb team is ecstatic at how well the first steps of taking images and aligning the telescope are proceeding," said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for the NIRCam instrument and regents professor of astronomy, University of Arizona, in a statement.

"We were so happy to see that light make its way into NIRCam."

The image capturing process began on February 2, with Webb pointing at different positions around the predicted location of the star.

Elon Musk 'Highly Confident' His Starship Will Reach Orbit in 2022

Though Webb's initial search covered an area of the sky about equal to the size of the full Moon, the dots were all located near the center portion, meaning the observatory is already relatively well positioned for final alignment.

To aid the process, the team also captured a "selfie" taken not through an externally mounted camera but through a special lens on board NIRCam.

NASA had previously said a selfie wasn't possible, so the news comes as a welcome bonus for space fans.

In Earth’s Nearest Planetary System, Astronomers Discover New Planet

"I think pretty much the reaction was holy cow," Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager, told reporters in a call, explaining that the team wasn't sure it was possible to obtain such an image using starlight alone.

The $10 billion (roughly Rs. 75,600 crore) observatory launched from French Guiana on December 25 and is now in an orbit that is aligned with the Earth's around the Sun, one million miles (1.5 million kilometers away) from our planet, in a region of space called the second Lagrange point.

Webb will begin its science mission by summer, which includes using its high-resolution instruments to peer back in time 13.5 billion years to the first generation of galaxies that formed after the Big Bang.

Visible and ultraviolet light emitted by the very first luminous objects has been stretched by the Universe's expansion, and arrives today in the form of infrared, which Webb is equipped to detect with unprecedented clarity.

Its mission also includes the study of distant planets, known as exoplanets, to determine their origin, evolution, and habitability.

Do Samsung's Galaxy S22 and Tab S8 series have any Android competition? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.