The clearest image of the edge of the galaxy ever

On May 9, the US Space Agency (NASA) shared the latest image taken from the James Webb Telescope, recording infrared light of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy (Large Magellanic Cloud) emitted from the galaxy. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) clouds. These are organic molecules that are considered the building blocks of life.

According to CNN, the image was sent back by James Webb during the final testing phase, including the deployment of the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) device before it officially goes into operation later this year. To use this tool, James Webb must operate in extremely cold temperatures (below -222 degrees Celsius).

“This is the sharpest infrared image ever taken by a space telescope,” Michael McElwain, home science at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

As NASA’s most powerful telescope to date, James Webb can look inside the atmospheres of exoplanets, collecting data on some galaxies through infrared light that is invisible to the human eye.

The photo was released by NASA after James Webb’s 18K gold-plated mirror was successfully refined. According to CNN, James Webb has a mirror surface of 6.5 m wide, allowing to collect a lot of light from objects in the universe. The more light the telescope can capture, the more detail the telescope can see.

NASA also compared images from James Webb with those taken by the Spitzer Telescope, which showed a marked improvement in detail and sharpness. Before being “retired” from January 2020, Spitzer was the first telescope to be able to take high-resolution images of the universe using near and mid-infrared light. James Webb’s giant glass allows more detail to be captured than Spitzer’s.

Galactic scientists say James Webb’s image of the Large Magellanic Cloud reveals unprecedented details about interstellar gas.

“We have about 1,000 operations scheduled to go live, and only about 200 left to complete,” he said. McElwain about James Webb’s testing process. The telescope’s instruments are being checked and calibrated one last time before the ground control team evaluates and is ready for future missions.

James Webb has been in development since 2004. Since then, thousands of scientists, technicians and engineers from 14 countries have spent more than 40 million hours building the telescope. Each of James Webb’s instruments has about 4-5 modes, including target motion tracking for scientists looking to study objects on the icy surfaces of the Solar System.

Klaus Pontoppidan, a scientist at the Baltimore Space Telescope Science Institute, said that James Webb’s first images of space, known as Early Release Observations (ERO), are expected to be released in mid-July. will be the pictures that kick off the new era of space observation by NASA.