James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update
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"Let's align the mirrors."
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/02/11/photons-received-webb-sees-its-first-star-18-times/
Link to videoThe team’s challenge was twofold: confirm that NIRCam was ready to collect light from celestial objects, and then identify starlight from the same star in each of the 18 primary mirror segments. The result is an image mosaic of 18 randomly organized dots of starlight, the product of Webb’s unaligned mirror segments all reflecting light from the same star back at Webb’s secondary mirror and into NIRCam’s detectors.
What looks like a simple image of blurry starlight now becomes the foundation to align and focus the telescope in order for Webb to deliver unprecedented views of the universe this summer. Over the next month or so, the team will gradually adjust the mirror segments until the 18 images become a single star.
“The entire Webb team is ecstatic at how well the first steps of taking images and aligning the telescope are proceeding. We were so happy to see that light makes its way into NIRCam,” said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for the NIRCam instrument and regents professor of astronomy, University of Arizona.
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cool stuff!!
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Webb fully aligned! See the new test images
https://earthsky.org/space/webb-telescope-aligned-new-test-images/
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-commissioning-update-may-2022
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Countdown to first images
Now 16 days 20 hours
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Now 11 days 13 hours
NASA scientists say images from the Webb telescope nearly brought them to tears
Deep field images of the universe, exoplanet atmospheres, and more to be unveiled.
NASA said it plans to release several images beginning at 10:30 am ET (14:30 UTC) on July 12, the result of Webb's "first light" observations.
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I read a "teaser" interview with one of the NASA scientists. They said the images almost brought them to tears.
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I read a "teaser" interview with one of the NASA scientists. They said the images almost brought them to tears.
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5 days 22 hours now
Tuesday July 12, 2022 10:30am EDT (14:30 GMT)
Find them here: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
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Stephan’s Quintet (galaxy group, 290 million lyr)
As seen from Hubble
The comparison will be interesting
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2009/25/2606-Image.html
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Stephan’s Quintet (galaxy group, 290 million lyr)
As seen from Hubble
The comparison will be interesting
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2009/25/2606-Image.html
@Copper said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:
The comparison will be interesting
I have no clue about astronomy, but I'd guess that in some ways the two aren't comparable since they deal, AFAIK, with very different parts of the light spectrum.
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Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today
https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.
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Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today
https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.
@Copper said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:
Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today
That's a lot of galaxies.
A whole lot.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today
https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.
@Copper said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:
Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today
Wow amazing stuff!!
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It's a giant leap forward in resolution and light gathering power.
The level of detail in the small galaxies, and the blatantly obvious gravitational lensing, has me very impressed and excited about what we are going to discover with this telescope.
I mean seeing friggin dust lanes and spiral arms, in galaxies that far away, is just incredible.
