The James Webb Space Telescope, located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, has completed the alignment phase of its scientific instruments, which are already working, NASA said.
Its four powerful instruments, three image processors and a spectrometer, were successfully aligned with the main mirror (6.5 meters in diameter), which was completed in early January, two weeks after the takeoff of the James Webb Telescope (JWST).
Each instrument has reached “operating temperature” and is ready for use, according to a statement from NASA.
Pending the first scientific observations (expected in the northern summer), it was confirmed that the instruments are capable of “capturing sharp, well-oriented images”, such as the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy, a Milky Way satellite taken from the Mirim instrument.
“This first image is great because we already have the quality we were looking for,” Mirim’s research director at the French research organization CEA, Pierre-Olivier Lagege, wrote on Twitter.
“Everything is going perfectly and (…) I’m sure with JWST we will move science forward by leaps and bounds,” he added.
“These test images show what can be achieved among people from different countries and continents when there is a bold scientific vision for space exploration,” said Lee Feinberg, commander of the JWST telescope components in NASA’s Goddard space flight.
The $ 10 billion James Webb Telescope is at the heart of astronomers’ hopes as it makes it possible to observe the first galaxies formed about 200 million years after the Big Bang.
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