NASA's new space telescope has gazed into the distant universe and shown perfect vision: a spiky image of a faraway star photobombed by thousands of ancient galaxies.
The image released Wednesday from the James Webb Space Telescope is a test shot—not an official science observation—to see how its 18 hexagonal mirrors worked together for a single coordinated image taken 1 million miles away from Earth. Officials said it worked better than expected.Scientists said they were giddy as they watched the latest test photos arrive. NASA's test image was aimed at a star 100 times fainter than the human eye can see—2,000 light-years away.
The shape of Webb's mirrors and its filters made the shimmering star look more red and spiky but the background really stole the show. "You can't help but see those thousands of galaxies behind it, really gorgeous," said Jane Rigby, Webb operations project scientist. Those galaxies are several billions of years old. Eventually, scientists hope Webb will see so faraway and back in time that it will only be"a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang," she said.The $10 billion Webb—successor to the nearly 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope—© 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.: retrieved 16 March 2022 from https://phys.
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