The James Webb Telescope’s instruments are now fully aligned and focused! And, according to NASA, the “optical performance of the telescope continues to be better than the engineering team’s most optimistic predictions.” After nearly 25 years of development and a million mile do-or-die unfolding process in space this is music to my ears.
To check the focus and the alignment, they pointed James Webb’s instruments at the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that is packed with hundreds of thousands of stars.
Now, all that remains is 2 months of instrument commissioning before the James Webb Telescope is ready to bring us unprecedented images of our universe and look back to its very beginnings some 13.5 billion years ago.
The stoke level is high. I cannot wait to see how its findings change our understanding of the sweet, sweet Universe we live in. I’ll leave you with this great quote from Webb wavefront sensing and controls scientist, Scott Acton:
“With the completion of telescope alignment and half a lifetime’s worth of effort, my role on the James Webb Space Telescope mission has come to an end. These images have profoundly changed the way I see the universe. We are surrounded by a symphony of creation; there are galaxies everywhere! It is my hope that everyone in the world can see them.”
– Scott Acton
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