Scoop James Webb takes a selfie released by NASA Image. It is trying to align its 18 giant mirrors to capture light from the oldest stars and galaxies. The process is going to take several months to complete.
The James Webb Space Telescope’s first journey was one million six hundred kilometers. He is far from Earth, and now he has arrived at his favorite location to peer into the past of the universe. The team of researchers worked all this time to ensure that a million things that could go wrong with the telescope wouldn’t happen.
NASA recently released the first image of a star from a telescope. The mosaic image consists of starlight from a single star. as individually reflected by 18 misaligned mirrors on the telescope’s secondary mirror and then captured by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam).
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What is NIRCam, and why is it so important?
In addition, NIRCam is one of the four main instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope’s wavefront sensor. Which senses and corrects problems in the telescope’s optics. Also, by using wavefront sensing, the James Webb Space Telescope can ensure that its 18 giant mirrors operate simultaneously as one giant mirror and do not create any artifacts.
According to NASA, it was also for in-mirror alignment steps because it has a wide field of view and the ability to operate at higher temperatures. To perform its role in aligning the mirrors, NIRCam also received a custom set of components, such as a specialized pupillary imaging lens.
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The special lens has no role in future scientific image capture, but its only purpose is to assist in the alignment process. By taking selfies of the mirror parts, the lens provides important information about its alignment and will complete the alignment process.
And because NIRCam operates at temperatures higher than the cryogenic temperatures it is designed to operate at, it will introduce artifacts into the raw images. Combined with other instruments that will start when they reach ideal operating temperatures, NIRCam will capture more accurate data.
According to the James Webb Space Telescope’s website, NIRCam is also equipped with vertebrae, a piece of equipment that allows faint objects to be captured close to brighter objects. When used, coronagraphs dim light from the brightest object, just like a raised hand dims light from the sun. The ability to view faint objects will help NIRCam detect and explore planets orbiting close to other stars.
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