My last post covering the James Webb Space Telescope was written on the fourth of January, on that day it was successfully deployed almost a week and half after being launched on Christmas day of last year. Since the launch day, astronomers as well as simple fans of space have been eagerly waiting to see what type of images the 18 hexagonal mirrors that are attached to the telescope will produce and what they may be able to tell us about our universe.
Within the past week the JWST was expected to have reached a place called the Earth-Sun second Lagrange point, or L2. This is a point in space that is nearly 1 million miles away from Earth (in the opposite direction from the Sun) where the gravity from both the Sun and Earth help to keep the orbiting satellite balanced in motion. This is great news because ‘L2’ Will be the James Webb Space Telescope’s Home in Space. Since the telescope has successfully reached it’s place of operation in the universe, images can now be taken and sent back to Earth that will help scientists finish the lengthy process of aligning the mirrors using the telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam).
The first couple pictures that have been produced came from a 25-hour effort that pointed the James Webb Space Telescope in 156 different positions and produced 1,560 images with the NIRCam’s sensors. The team…
