Check out the first images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope

They're not the most stunning photos of the universe, but they mark a huge scientific milestone.

The wait is finally over.

On February 11, the team behind NASA's James Webb Space Telescope released some of the first images taken by the highly anticipated observatory.

The main image shows a star called HD 84406. This image doesn't even hint at the power that Webb will bring to the universe when it is fully operational, which it only started on February 2 Part of the mosaic captured over 25 hours during the ongoing alignment of the observatory's segmented mirrors.

"The entire Webb team is ecstatic that the first step of capturing images and aligning the telescope is going so smoothly," said Marcia Rieck.

The first image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope shows part of a mosaic that began on February 2, 2022, with 18 points aligned with the James Webb Space Telescope's mirror. Part of the process began and lasted 25 hours.

The telescope deployed from launch status in its first month and traveled nearly 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

For much of the rest of the day, scientists are focused on waking up and calibrating the observatory's instruments and fine-tuning the telescope's 18 gold mirror sections, which are needed to capture clear images of the deep universe. Required.

According to NASA, the process is going smoothly.

"Acquiring so much data on day one requires that all of Webb's science operations and data processing systems on Earth work smoothly with the observatory in space from the beginning. Early in the search, we found that all The rays in all 18 sections are very close to the center! This is a good starting point for mirror alignment."

Annotated diagram of the James Webb Space Telescope's first image marking which mirrors captured the star. Which views of HD 84406.

However, as today's high-definition 84406 image shows, telescopes still have a long way to go.

"The first images are going to be ugly," Webb operations project scientist Jane Rigby said at a press conference on Jan. 8 as the telescope began mirror removal process.

"The weather is going to be very blurry. We'll have 18 of these little pictures filling the sky."

This photo does show multiple views of HD 84406, JWST ’s scientists recently announced that they had chosen to observe this star first.

NASA officials tweeted on January 28: "Starlight, bright stars... The first star Webb will see is HD 84406, a sun-like star , about 260 light-years away."

HD 84406 is located in the constellation Ursa Major, but it cannot be seen from the earth without a telescope.

But for Webb, it's a perfect early target because its brightness is stable and the observatory can always spot it, so launch or deployment delays won't affect plans.

Oddly, jwst will not be able to observe HD 84406 later in its tenure; once the telescope is focused, the star will become too bright to observe.

Previously, JWST staff had stated that by late April, the telescope would see quite clear images.

While JWST works to hone its view, a second key process is taking place in the background, as the observatory is sending its remaining heat on Earth into space.

Because Webb studied the universe using infrared light, which is also recorded as heat, the observatory had to be very cold to obtain accurate data.

Team members said, "After all these years, it's exciting to actually see the data when we're in zero gravity in space. I will say that when we look at it in the room People are really excited about the data."

However, "we're still a little cautious because we still have a lot to do...but I will say for sure when I get home Saturday night. , two days later (after the photo was taken), I know my wife said to me that this was the first time she had seen me smile since December."

Palin said: "When As we looked at the data coming down, just a few images spread over a few hours at a time, over the course of the day, we started to see those bright spots that we were looking for," he added. When it began to come together, "It was such an amazing moment. Everyone in the room was in tears and excited."

Onward, onward.

In addition to the mosaic, NASA also released an annotated version of the photo, as well as a "selfie" of Webb's iconic gold mirror taken by NIRCam.

Webb will continue to align and focus its mirrored parts so that, as a whole, they can focus their sights on distant cosmic objects.

There is no rush, however, as Webb's other science instruments continue to cool down as they are still too hot to come online.

The team expects the initial comparison of the Webb lenses to take about a month to complete, Perrin said.