The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the largest and most powerful space telescope in human history, which not long ago sent the first space photos and selfies to Earth, has recently finished adjusting 18 mirror pieces and improving the clarity, IT media Cnet reported recently.
The James Webb Space Telescope is in the process of getting the best picture of space by coordinating 18 gold-plated hexagonal mirrors designed to work together to act like a single mirror.
On the 11th (local time), NASA released an image of ‘HD-84406’, one of the stars constituting the constellation Ursa Major, which is a picture of one star reflected in 18 mirrors before mirror adjustment.
NASA then went through a Segment Alignment step that fine-tuned 18 individual mirrors. The research team tweeted a GIF picture of the telescope before and after partial alignment. In this picture you can see how the telescope focuses more clearly.
Then, after merging images successively to increase sharpness and reduce noise, NASA took pictures and released them.
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NASA will continue to fine-tune the mirrors “to make a point of starlight increasingly sharper and more focused over the coming weeks.” The James Webb Space Telescope’s full mirror alignment process is expected to begin in early February and last for three months.
The James Webb Space Telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Scientists hope James Webb will be able to find a habitable planet in space.