Skip to main content

James Webb begins aligning 3 of its instruments

The James Webb Space Telescope recently hit a big milestone when engineers completed the alignment of its mirrors. But there is still a lot to do before the telescope is ready to begin science operations this summer. With the mirrors aligned with Webb’s instruments, NIRCam, now the team needs to work on aligning the other three instruments, and it recently began to do that with a process called multi-instrument multi-field (MIMF) alignment.

The six-week MIMF alignment process will align the three instruments plus Webb’s guidance system, called the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS). This process is necessary to allow Webb to switch seamlessly between its different instruments. All the cameras observe at the same time, so if researchers want to look at a particular target like a star using different instruments, the telescope needs to be repointed to move the target into the field of view of the new instrument.

NASA scientists have shared more about how the MIMF alignment works in a blog post. “After MIMF, Webb’s telescope will provide a good focus and sharp images in all the instruments. In addition, we need to precisely know the relative positions of all the fields of view,” wrote Jonathan Gardner, Webb deputy senior project scientist, and Stefanie Milam, Webb deputy project scientist for planetary science, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“Over last weekend, we mapped the positions of the three near-infrared instruments relative to the guider and updated their positions in the software that we use to point the telescope. In another instrument milestone, FGS recently achieved ‘fine guide’ mode for the first time, locking onto a guide star using its highest precision level. We have also been taking ‘dark’ images, to measure the baseline detector response when no light reaches them – an important part of the instrument calibration.”

The next instruments to be aligned will be the Near-Infrared Spectrograph and the Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, which along with NIRCam are the three near-infrared instruments. The final instrument, the Mid-Infrared Instrument or MIRI, will be the last to be aligned as it still needs to be cooled down to its operating temperature, which is an almost unfathomably chilly seven degrees above absolute zero.

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
James Webb observes merging stars creating heavy elements
This image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument highlights GRB 230307A’s kilonova and its former home galaxy among their local environment of other galaxies and foreground stars. The neutron stars were kicked out of their home galaxy and travelled the distance of about 120,000 light-years, approximately the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy, before finally merging several hundred million years later.

In its earliest stages, the universe was composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. All of the other, heavier elements that make up the universe around us today were created over time, and it is thought that they were created primarily within stars. Stars create heavy elements within them in the process of fusion, and when these stars reach the ends of their lives they may explode in supernovas, spreading these elements in the environment around them.

That's how heavier elements like those up to iron are created. But for the heaviest elements, the process is thought to be different. These are created not within stellar cores, but in extreme environments such as the merging of stars, when massive forces create exceedingly dense environments that forge new elements.

Read more
Researchers discover a 320-mph jet stream around Jupiter’s equator
This image of Jupiter from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows stunning details of the majestic planet in infrared light. In this image, brightness indicates high altitude. The numerous bright white "spots" and "streaks" are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms. Auroras, appearing in red in this image, extend to higher altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of the planet. By contrast, dark ribbons north of the equatorial region have little cloud cover. In Webb’s images of Jupiter from July 2022, researchers recently discovered a narrow jet stream traveling 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour) sitting over Jupiter’s equator above the main cloud decks.

The James Webb Space Telescope might be best known for its study of extremely distant galaxies, but it is also used for research on targets closer to home, like planets within our solar system. Last year, the telescope captured a stunning image of Jupiter as seen in the infrared wavelength, and now scientists who have been working on this data have published some of their findings about the planet -- including a brand-new feature that they identified in its atmosphere.

This image of Jupiter from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows stunning details of the majestic planet in infrared light. In Webb’s images of Jupiter from July 2022, researchers recently discovered a narrow jet stream traveling 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour) sitting over Jupiter’s equator above the main cloud decks. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ricardo Hueso (UPV), Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Thierry Fouchet (Observatory of Paris), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Read more
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will soon make its first flyby of an asteroid
An artist's concept of the Lucy Mission.

NASA's Lucy spacecraft, which launched in 2021, is on its way to the orbit of Jupiter to study the Trojan asteroids there. It won't arrive there until 2027, but the spacecraft will have the opportunity to do some extra science before then, as it will soon be making a flyby of another asteroid called Dinkinesh. At less than half a mile wide, this small asteroid sits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it will be Lucy's first asteroid flyby.

Artist’s illustration of the Lucy concept. Southwest Research Institute

Read more