James Webb Space Telescope captures its first images of a star
a mosaic of pictures of a star taken using the primary mirror's 18 segments. It looks like a seemingly random collection of blurry dots, but that's precisely what the mission team was expecting. The imagery will help scientists finish the lengthy mirror alignment process using the telescope's Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam. The first phase is nearly complete as of this writing.
The visuals came from a 25-hour effort that pointed the James Webb Space Telescope to 156 different positions and produced 1,560 images with the NIRCam's sensors. The team created the mosaic using the signature of each mirror segment in a single frame. Visual artifacts come from using the infrared camera at temperatures well above the frigid conditions the telescope will need for scientific observation.
Researchers expect the first scientifically useful images from JWST in the summer. It's reasonable to presume those pictures will be considerably more exciting, especially as they start providing glimpses of the early universe. Still, what you see here demonstrates the telescope's health and suggests there won't be much trouble in the months ahead.
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