By submitting images of the Large Magellanic Cloud, NASA has announced that the James Webb Space Telescope is nearing completion. At a cost of tens of billions of dollars, the telescope, which was built over several decades, is currently orbiting at a distance of one and a half million kilometers from Earth at the so-called gravitational equilibrium point L2.
Calibration of the scientific systems and instruments on board took several months.
I can say that this is already the finish line. About a thousand assignment tasks have to be completed, and only two hundred are left
JWST’s Michael McElwain told CNN.
McElwain also said that the test images provided are the sharpest images ever made by a space telescope. By comparison, the new images were compared to infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, which was discontinued in early 2020.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech (left), NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (right)
The Great Magellanic Cloud is a smaller galaxy orbiting the Milky Way 163,000 light-years away.
The James Webb Space Telescope will begin scientific work this summer and will not only be able to look at the beginning of the universe, but will also be able to study the atmospheres of some exoplanets. It was not revealed which part of the sky should be examined first.
