Stars with increasingly faint light will be used.
“The fact that we found the 18 so close together, and in the center of the search region, means that the mirrors are already quite well aligned“, rejoiced during a press conference Marshall Perrin, scientist of the project.
The telescope also took a selfie, once more thanks to NIRCam: in a black and white image published by NASA, we can clearly distinguish the 18 small mirrors, thanks to the light coming from the stars and reflecting on them.
The reaction of NASA teams to this selfie? “Oh damn!“, said Lee Feinberg, in charge of the telescope’s optics. But far from being taken for the only pleasure, this selfie is used by the teams to check the alignment with the scientific instruments.
“It is still too early to say whether or not there is a size defect.” on the telescope, tempered Lee Feinberg. But he confided that when he returned home on Saturday, his wife had “says it was the first time she (him) had seen her smile since December“.
James Webb, which had taken off from French Guiana on December 25is now 1.5 million km from Earth, having deployed into space during perilous maneuvers that had never been attempted before.
Worth 10 billion dollars, it must in particular explore the formation of the first galaxies, and the atmosphere of exoplanets in search of potentially habitable environments.
The first images of scientific observations, which promise to be spectacular, are expected in the summer.