Encouraging Webb Telescope Image Shows a Single Star in a Familiar Pattern

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Engineers are working to align the 18 gold mirrors of the $10 billion telescope as it is fixated on a single star. The 18 dots will eventually form a single image. At first, these dots were seen as random spots, but now they are oriented to match the shape of the primary mirror in a process known as segment image identification.

Matthew Lallo, systems scientist at the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute, said in the statement that they steer the segment dots into this array so that they have the same relative locations as the physical mirrors.

With the dots oriented into a hexagonal formation, the team will now go about segment alignment in which positioning errors will be corrected for each segment. The team will update the secondary mirror alignment, which will make each dot appear more focused, like giving each mirror a pair of glasses. The third phase is called Image Stacking, and it sounds like it: the team will bring all 18 spots of light on top of each other to form a single dot.

The second and third steps should be easier because of the current orientation of the mirrors. The team will be able to see changes in the segment spots in the context of the mirror arrangement once the image stacking process gets underway.

The alignment stage should be completed by the end of the month. The science phase of the mission is expected to begin in June, when it will explore some of the most distant regions of the universe, the evolution of galaxies over time, and the atmospheres of extrasolar planets.

The first glimpse of light was seen by the Webb Space Telescope.