James Webb Space Telescope takes its first selfie

We know the James Webb Space Telescope works because NASA told us it did, but now you do not have to take the agency's word for it. NASA has released the telescope's first images, although they are still only from the calibration process. It will be a few months before Webb is ready to start science activities, but there is a really interesting selfie for you. No, Webb still has no external cameras, but it has a special lens inside that allows us to look at the primary mirror. 

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day last year, on its way into space aboard a TRAVEL Ariane 5 rocket. The launch was a textbook, which ensures that Webb had even more fuel than NASA had anticipated. NASA now believes that Webb can continue its operations for 20 years, a significant increase from its five-year design. Webb was developed in the weeks after the launch and it reached its home at Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange Point at the end of January. Now NASA is calibrating the mirror and delivering these first images. 

The image immediately above is a "real" version of the NASA simulation released last week. It shows 18 points of light that are actually a single star known as HD 84406. There are 18 of them because there are so many segments in the spacecraft's Korsch-like reflector. NASA first had to identify which point was which - you can see them all marked above. They even know what points are coming from the winged parts of the mirror. 

Since this was the telescope's first observation, the team was not even sure where to point it. They scanned 156 different positions around HD 84406 and took 1,560 images for a total of 56 GB of data. However, Webb was able to locate the star in all its mirrors during the first 16 exposures. Now the team plans to adjust the panels to focus on a single point so that a star will look like a star for Webb. 

The picture below is possibly even more disturbing than the 18 bright spots. When Webb was launched, there was a lot of fuss that no one would ever see it again because there are no external cameras - it just drifted away from Ariane 5 to the abyss. Well, except for the lovely 6.5-meter mirror, as it turns out. The telescope's NICam instrument was designed with a special "pupil imaging lens" inside which, together with the secondary mirror, can reflect an image of the primary mirror so that the NICam can take a mirror selfie. 

The selfie lens is not intended for scientific surgery - it's just a technical tool to help with the adjustment and turn these 18 dots into one. In the selfie, you can distinguish the division of all 18 plates and the shadow of the secondary mirror supports. One of the segments is also much brighter than the others. NASA says it's because it reflected a bright star while the others pointed to darker parts of the void. 

We expect the first properly focused images of space from Webb to arrive during the summer.