The Large Magellanic Cloud is sharper than ever in the eyes of a telescope.
As the $10 billion observatory enters the home stretch of its commissioning work, officials say the latest image showed off the telescope's stellar performance using its coldest instrument.
The new MIRI image showed the chemistry of interstellar gas in the best detail yet, including emission from carbon and hydrogen called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, considered some of life's building blocks. Officials said during a news conference Monday that the ability to image stars is crucial to understanding how stars and planets are formed.
Chris Evans, the telescope's project scientist at the European Space Agency, said during the event that this is a really nice science example of what the telescope will do for us in the future.
Live updates: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope mission
Related: How the James Webb Space Telescope works in pictures
We've done a lot of studies of star and planet formation in our own galaxy, but we're looking at it in the Magellanic Clouds, where they're less evolved than our own Way.
The image shows a view of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is a dwarf galaxy next to the Milky Way. Engineers re-released an image from the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope. The high-resolution images of the near- and mid-infrared universe were created by Spitzer, but they were not as powerful.
Evans noted that the observatory was limited by its spatial resolution as it was used for wide-field surveys that capture celestial objects in context.
Evans said that the detailed, close-up view of the processes in a different galaxy would be amazing.
In addition, the now-retired telescope used to operate in an Earth-trailing orbit, as opposed to the one used by the now-retired telescope at Earth-sun Lagrange point 2, about 9. The factors will allow the new telescope to see more of the sky.
There have been few issues with the milestones. Engineers are now in the final stages of tweaking the instruments after all of the mirrors cooled.
The Hubble Space Telescope has studied the LMC before and it was identified as an ideal release target. Knowing the locations of the stars is a key advantage for scientists, according to a scientist at NASA.
He explained that the stars are important for calibrating the science instruments.
In the near future, mission personnel will test the ability to track objects in the solar system, such as planets, satellites, rings, asteroids and comets. Given that the observatory is sensitive to starlight, scientists will be focused on making sure the observatory can do this properly.
Evans said that they would measure changes in the telescope alignment as they point the telescope to different locations. The observatory will swing between hotter and colder attitudes so that everyone can learn how quickly its mirrors heat up and cool down.
The observatory remains on schedule to begin its early release science this summer despite officials not releasing information on which target it will focus on first.
Evans said that when this phase is complete, they will be ready to turn the science instruments loose on the universe.
Follow Elizabeth on social media. Follow us on social media.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
