NASA Shows Off JWST Alignment Image

NASA has shared a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope during the continuing alignment process for the telescope. The image shows a single bright star in the foreground and many galaxies in the background.

So far, the near-infrared camera used to take the picture of the star has been successfully aligned. NASA still has four other instruments aboard the space telescope that must be aligned. If all of the instruments aren’t perfectly aligned, the telescope can’t capture the sharp images required by astronomers.

NASA has stated that the multi-instrument multi-field alignment will take six weeks to complete. Commissioning the telescope to get it up and running should be completed around June.

The James Webb Space Telescope launched on December 25. NASA’s Jonathan Gardner, the senior project scientists for the telescope, said, “All the cameras see the sky at the same time; to switch a target from one camera to another, we repoint the telescope to put the target into the field of view of the other instrument.”