The James Webb Space Telescope has finally reached its intended orbit. The scientists are now working to align the mirrors for it to capture the first images.
Telescope’s commissioning phase will last for five months before humans point it to the edge of the universe and see the birth of the first stars.
James Webb is designed to look back over 13.5 billion years; it will capture the infrared light from celestial objects. The best part is these will be in much higher resolution than ever before.
The revolutionary telescope will help us study our own solar system as well as distant worlds.
“It has been about a month since the launch, and it has been an unbelievable ride. I am so filled with pride for our team. The deployments could not have gone more perfectly. After the last wing deployment, more than one person made comments like, ‘it seemed so simple; did we overstate the complexity and difficulty of the deployments?’ The perfection of the deployment execution and the subsequent activities reflects directly on how hard everyone worked and the diligence and sacrifice it took on the part of so many people,” Bill Ochs, Webb project manager said in a statement.
The James Webb Telescope team is working to align the 18 mirror segments that will help gather a precise amount of light on those iconic hexagonal surfaces.
It will soon start seeing the HD 84406 star. Scientists call it the perfect target to begin the search for photons.
James Webb is a $9-billion telescope, the premier space-science observatory of the next decade. Besides, it is several times more powerful than the Hubble telescope.
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