The mirror on the James Webb telescope looks like a golden honeycomb dish.
That was not what NASA opened on Wednesday.
It did deploy a small mirror that was only about the size of a car tire. The team cautions againstunderestimating its significance. Bill Oakes said during the broadcast that they have a telescope 600,000 miles from Earth.
The secondary mirror is what makes this thing a telescope.
The light will be able to go into the telescope.
Without the small mirror there to gather and concentrate the light reflected off the primary honeycomb mirror, the science it is expected to accomplish would not be possible. The second mirror is positioned in front of the honeycomb and will focus the light from the 18 hexagonal honeycomb segments into a beam. The light bounces off the curved surface of the secondary.
The beam is directed into a third mirror and other mirrors before it is sent into the scientific instruments. Light cannot enter the telescope if the secondary mirror is not in the right position.
The beam is shaped and reflected back to the secondary mirror, which is what the telescope is designed to do.
The deployment involved a large tripod with legs stretched out from the primary mirror, holding a smaller mirror in front of it. The above video shows a ground test.
The telescope is called the Webb. It will be a much bigger telescope by the end of the week.
