NASA’s new space telescope has gazed into the distant universe and shown perfect vision: a spiky image of a faraway star photobombed by thousands of ancient galaxies.
The image released Wednesday from the James Webb Space Telescope is a test shot — not an official science observation — to see how its 18 hexagonal mirrors worked together for a single coordinated image taken 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away from Earth. Officials said it worked better than expected.
NASA James Webb Space Telescope Project Manager Bill Ochs monitors the progress of the observatory’s second primary mirror wing.
(NASA/Bill Ingalls)
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Last month, NASA looked at a much closer star with 18 separate images from its mirror segments.
Scientists said they were giddy as they topicsthe latest test photos arrive. NASA’s test image was aimed at a star 100 times fainter than the human eye can see — 2,000 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).
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The $10 billion Webb — successor to the nearly 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope — blasted off from South America in December and reached its designated perch in January.
