A Fully Aligned Webb Space Telescope Sees a Field of Stars

NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency are working together on a project to find the secrets of the universe. The goal of the telescope is to collect data on potentially habitable exoplanets, as well as to observe distant stars and budding galaxies using its golden honeycomb array. The seventh and final stage of alignment is complete and it has amazing photos from each of its four instruments to prove it.

These test images from a successfully aligned telescope demonstrate what people across countries and continents can achieve when there is a bold scientific vision to explore the universe.

The telescope is able to capture images of stars in sharp focus thanks to the incoming light from the far reaches of the universe. The instruments are the NIRCam, a near-IR camera that can image young stars and forming galaxies, the NIRSpec, a powerful spectrograph, and the MIRI, a camera that operates in the mid-IR wavelength.

The process of instrument commissioning is where these incredibly sensitive instruments will be tested across different configurations to make sure they are ready for full-scale operation. The telescope will point at different patches of the sky to make sure it is stable. The official start of the science mission should occur this summer.