James Webb Space Telescope has successfully gone through the deployment of its secondary mirror. This was another complex procedure altogether.
This comes a day after fully tensioning the sun shield, the space observatory’s secondary mirror was deployed using the world’s most sophisticated tripod.
This mirror is 2.4-feet-wide, located on the tips of three carbon fibre tubes that extend out from the large primary mirror.
Each of the fibre tubes is 25 feet long; these are designed in a way that can withstand adverse impacts in the space environment.
Later on, the James Webb telescope will deploy its iconic honeycomb-shaped gold mirror.
So, after its deployment, the secondary mirror becomes the second surface that light from distant stars will hit on its path to the historic telescope.
Now when any light hits the James Webb Space Telescope’s 18 gold primary mirrors, it will reflect and hit the smaller secondary mirror; this will then redirect the light into the telescope.
Engineers on earth have been continuously monitoring the progress of this long and complex process.
It will take at least a month’s time to successfully deploy the world’s most powerful James Webb telescope.
The deployment process began this Wednesday (January 5) said NASA. What is worth mentioning is that the secondary mirror had to unfold in microgravity and in extremely cold temperatures.
How it will work is by remaining steady while the telescope points to different places in the sky. James Webb Space Telescope is set to replace the Hubble telescope.
It is a joint project of NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency, James Webb will provide fresh insights into the origins of the Universe.
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