NASA Starts 3-Month Alignment Phase Of James Webb Space Telescope

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have launched a three-month procedure to align the 18 segments of the primary mirror, fine-tuning its form so that it works as a single, 21-foot-diameter mirror.

"This milestone marks the first of many steps to capture images that are at first unfocused and use them to slowly fine-tune the telescope," NASA officials said in a tweet.

James Webb Space Telescope Alignment Starts

According to a recent NASA article, the three-month alignment procedure started this week. Webb team members saw the first photons of sunlight that passed through the complete telescope and were recognized by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) sensor during the previous day.

This is the first of many steps in taking blurry photographs and utilizing them to fine-tune the telescope over time. Although the method is still in its infancy, the preliminary findings align with predictions and simulations.

A team of engineers and scientists from Ball Aerospace, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center will now utilize the data obtained with NIRCam to progressively position the telescope.

According to the James Webb Space Telescope website, the telescope's installation is complete, as well as the fact that Webb had entered orbit around L2 before the alignment started. The device is finally turned on, tested, and calibrated when the cooling process is completed. As temperatures drop and equipment are turned on, telescope mirror realignment and calibration begin.

The telescope and scientific instruments cool down swiftly in the shadow once the sun-shield is deployed. Still, it will take many weeks to achieve stable working temperatures. This cooling will be precisely regulated thanks to strategically placed electric warming strips.

JWST's Three-Month Alignment Procedure

NASA said the procedure will be divided into seven sections over three months, culminating in a fully aligned telescope suitable for instrument commissioning.

Webb's images from this period will not be as "wonderful" as the new cosmic vistas he will reveal later this summer. They are exclusive to preparing the telescope for scientific use.

Segment Image Identification, Segment Alignment, Image Stacking, Coarse Phasing, Fine Phasing, Telescope Alignment Over Instrument Fields of View, and Iterate Alignment for Final Correction are all steps in the commissioning process.

The telescope's 18 primary mirror segments must match each other to a fraction of a wavelength of light - roughly 50 nanometers - to perform as a single mirror.

To put this in perspective, each section of the Webb primary mirror would be the size of Texas, and the crew would have to fix the angles of those Texas-sized pieces to within 1.5 inches of one other.

What's Next For JWST?

Alignment isn't the last stage in Webb's trip to operational status, according to Space.com. The mission crew will still need to commission the telescope's four research instruments.

Team members said this work should be completed by late June or early July. At this time, Webb will begin its eagerly anticipated science mission.

The observatory will investigate the universe's early stars and galaxies, examine the atmospheres of neighboring exoplanets for fascinating compounds, and conduct a range of other high-impact studies throughout that mission.

After the alignment phase is completed, the spacecraft will devote a large amount of its first year of observations to studying exoplanets or planets orbiting distant stars.

Daily Mail said one of the first studies will be a study of 11 'super-Earths,' or exoplanets roughly the same size as Earth but smaller than Neptune.

None of these objects are present in our own solar system, but they are relatively frequent elsewhere in the Milky Way, making them crucial to observe.

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