NASA marked a historic milestone on Christmas 2021 when it sent the most powerful space telescope beyond our planet’s atmosphere. Also known as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), NASA’s fancy gear has important missions. It’s set to provide crucial information about the very first stars that illuminated the Universe, some of the very distant galaxies, and more.
Another important fact is that JWST will safely remain in orbit for plenty of years. The telescope has enough fuel to last for more than a decade in space.
Eyes set on HD 84406
The HD 84406 star represents a part of a new photo captured by James Webb from space, according to Space.com. The same publication reveals that astronomers will further be focusing on calibrating the instruments to obtain clear images of remote regions of the Universe.
Marshall Perrin, who’s the deputy telescope scientist for James Webb, declared as NASA’s blog quotes:
This initial search covered an area about the size of the full moon because the segment dots could potentially have been that spread out on the sky,
Taking so much data right on the first day required all of Webb’s science operations and data processing systems here on Earth working smoothly with the observatory in space right from the start. And we found light from all 18 segments very near the center early in that search! This is a great starting point for mirror alignment.
Hopefully, James Webb will also help astronomers unpuzzle the mysteries behind the Big Bang and what might have happened before the event. In recent years, many scientists admitted that there had to be something else that occurred before the emergence of the singularity behind the ‘bang’ itself.
JWST is the most powerful space telescope ever sent into space, and we can all consider ourselves lucky to live during the same time with the activity of such an important invention!
