Scientists begin the countdown to July 12 date with Webb images. Launched in December 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope, the observatory, is all set to ensure it is ready for science.
Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) recently captured a view of stars and galaxies that provides a tantalizing glimpse at what the telescope’s science instruments will reveal in the coming weeks, months, and years.
The resulting engineering test image is among the deepest images of the universe ever taken, representing highly faint objects, and is now the deepest image of the infrared sky. Bright stars stand out with their six long, sharply defined diffraction spikes. This was the effect of Webb’s six-sided mirror segments. Beyond the stars – galaxies fill nearly the entire background.
Amazing, yet sticking to the orange-red just because it would look like it to human eyes, is not taking the advantage of color perception to map the full spectrum of wavelength gradients from what telescope registers to what human is able to perceive. I’m looking forward to filter-based false color images to experience the spectral depth of what is seen by the telescope.