On Saturday, the observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, completed a final, crucial step around 10:30 a.m. Eastern time by unfolding the last section of its golden, hexagonal mirrors. It is three times the size of the Hubble Space Telescope and designed to see further into the past than its celebrated predecessor in order to study the first stars and galaxies to turn on in the dawn of time. Then Thursday, the telescope unfurled its secondary mirror, which points at the 18 hexagons, reflecting what the telescope saw back to its sensors. “We’re about 600,000 miles from Earth, and we actually have a telescope,” Ochs said Thursday in the mission operations control room at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Astronomers have said the first picture from the Webb telescope will appear in June — but a picture of what, nobody will say.

Source: bd News24 January 08, 2022 20:08 UTC