The third stage of aligning the mirrors is a crucial step in getting state-of-the-art imagery out of the $10 billion space telescope. The telescope heads into the second month of its three-month alignment period on time. NASA team members have been working hard to get the telescope ready for science since it arrived at its observation point. HD 84406 was used as a guidepost for aligning the 18 primary mirrors. On February 4, the telescope saw its first light, and on February 11, it snapped a sort-of selfies. The goal is to get the mirrors to match each other to 50 billionths of a meter. If the primary mirror were larger than the United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and the team would need to line the height of those segments up with each other. The 18 primary mirrors were aligned on February 18 to organize the dots of light. Stacking the images on top of one another was the next step. The image stacking alignment phase was completed three days ahead of schedule. HD 84406 is now a single point of light.
We still have work to do, but we are increasingly pleased with the results we are seeing.
The mirrors are still functioning as single instruments, rather than one big telescope. Alignments are necessary. Coarse phasing will begin in the fourth phase of mirror alignment. The team can use the results of the mirror segments beingpaired to detect where differences in the heights are affecting the image sharpness.
Coarse phasing will take place in the next several weeks, after which will come fine phasing, telescope alignment across the rest of the instruments, and finally, final corrections. There are more details about the alignment phases here.
Our knowledge of the early universe, as well as some objects within our solar system, will be expanded with the help of the new telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope works in the visible and ultraviolet light, while the new telescope will only observe in the near and IR.
Hubble was launched in 1990. It will look back in time more than any device before it, with technology that wasn't possible 30 years ago.
The ballpark estimate is mid-summer of 2022, but the fact that nothing has gone wrong yet is a testament to the hours and effort invested by the scientists and engineers eager to give the world a whole new.
The telescope captures selfies with its gold mirrors.
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