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This five-image mosaic shows the field of view of the James Webb Space Telescope
Photo: STScI/NASA
Alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope is complete.
After extensive testing, the US space agency Nasa has now confirmed that the observatory is capable of capturing sharp, well-focused images with each of the four powerful scientific instruments on board.
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This ends the seventh and final phase of the telescope alignment - and the next step in the preparations can begin: the commissioning of the scientific instruments.
The telescope is instructed to point to different parts of the sky.
In these areas, the total amount of solar radiation hitting the observatory varies.
This type of calibration is intended to confirm thermal stability when changing targets.
This process will take about two months.
As soon as this is completed, the James Webb Space Telescope can begin scientific operations in the summer.
There is "a bold scientific vision to explore the universe"
Alignment of the telescope with all Webb instruments can be seen in a series of images covering the observatory's entire field of view.
"These remarkable test images from a successfully aligned telescope show what people can achieve across countries and continents when there is a bold scientific vision to explore the universe," said Lee Feinberg, who oversees the Optical Elements Division of the Webb Telescope at Goddard responsible for NASA's Space Flight Center.
The telescope's optical performance continues to exceed the engineering team's most optimistic predictions, NASA said.
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The Webb telescope's mirrors direct the light collected from space to each instrument in a fully focused manner, and each instrument successfully takes pictures - with the light fed to it.
From now on there will only be very small, regular adjustments to the primary mirror segments.
The image released by NASA for the "Sharpness Check" consists of five images taken by the telescope's four scientific instruments and fine control sensor.
For the test, the Webb telescope was aimed at part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Nasa named the three imaging instruments NIRCam, which takes images at a wavelength of 2 micrometers, NIRISS for images at 1.5 micrometers and MIRI.
MIRI is taking images at a wavelength of 7.7 microns, showing both emission from interstellar clouds and starlight.
The NIRSpec instrument is more of a spectrograph, but can also record images for calibrations.
The telescope's "Fine Guidance Sensor" tracks guide stars to accurately and precisely point the observatory.
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