Webb has a telescope It has completed the third stage of aligning its mirrors, a crucial process to get the latest images from this $10 billion space telescope. This feat comes just in time as the telescope enters the second month of its three-month alignment phase.
Ever since Webb arrived at the observation point in space, a location called L2, members of the NASA team have been hard at work getting the telescope ready for the science to begin. This process means that one star, HD 84406, is used as a guide to align the 18 primary mirrors.
telescope Publish their full mirrors End of January, He saw his first light On February 4th to pick up some kind Photo On February 11, the ultimate goal is to make the mirrors identical by about 50 nanometers, or 50 billionths of a meter. It was also shelved by Alize Fisher New NASA blog“If the basic Webb mirror was US-sized, then each piece would be Texas-sized, and the team would have to align the heights of these Texas-sized pieces to within about 1.5 inches.” TRefers to the alignment of mirrors made by humans here on Earth, a A million miles from the telescope.
On February 18th, the mirrors lined up enough to get organized 18 Light Point Captured by each of the 18 primary mirrors. The next step was to focus these 18 views of the same star onto a single point – literally by stacking the images on top of each other. This is now done because the file The image stack alignment phase was completed on February 25, three days ahead of schedule. HD 84406 as seen by Webb is now a single point Of light as it should be.
Lee Feinberg, director of the Webb Optical Telescope Element at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. Agency Approval. “Years of planning and testing are paying off, and the team couldn’t have been more excited about what the coming weeks and months will bring.”
Mirrors still work as a single instrument, although they need to be more than a large telescope. Exact combinations are essential. The fourth stage of mirror alignment, called the coarse gradient, now begins. This process involves pairing 20 different mirror pieces to cast light together; The team can use these results to identify where differences in clip height reduce image sharpness.
The coarse stages will be implemented over the next few weeks, followed by fine stages and alignment of the telescope via the rest of Webb’s instruments (for now, the team is only working on optimizing the primary mirror). and also the last Last corrections. more dThe details of the alignment levels can be read above here.
Webb will expand our knowledge oThe early universe, galaxies and also exoplanets Some objects in our solar system. the The telescope will not replace the veteran Hubble Space Telescope. It detects infrared and near-infrared radiation, while Hubble works primarily in the ultraviolet and visible light.
But Hubble was launched again in 1990. Webb will look at the universe along with his predecessor, however We will look back in time more than any device before it, with technology that wasn’t possible 30 years ago.
Webb is still perfectly compatible and a bit scientifically feasible – estimated lead time is mid-summer 2022 – but the fact that nothing has gone wrong so far is a testament to the hours and efforts of scientists and engineers striving to transform the world To give a whole new look at the old universe.
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