The Milky Way’s satellite galaxies are so clear that they don’t seem to recognize them, and the Webb telescope sends new images | TechNews Technology News

It is a galaxy known before, but it seems that it has never been seen before. The mid-infrared imaging-spectroscope (MIRI), the most heat-hungry Webb telescope, recently cooled to its working temperature, and took a test photo to test focus. Always clear and dazzling.

The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope has entered the final stage of commissioning. A few days ago, NASA just announced that the Webb telescope’s 18 gold-plated split mirrors have all been optically calibrated. All like Hubble’s “Ultra Deep Field” showing countless stars.

Now, NASA has released a new image showing the performance of the coldest instrument, the Mid-Infrared Imaging-Spectrometer. This 7.7-micron image reveals the chemical properties of the interstellar gas in the Milky Way dwarf galaxy: the Large Magellanic Cloud in the most detailed way, including the Molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, often considered one of the building blocks of life.

Engineers also released 8.0-micron images from the same location in the past by the Spitzer Space Telescope (retired), a pioneer in high-resolution imaging in near- and mid-infrared light, but a comparison of the old and new images made it difficult to see It was immediately apparent that the Webb telescope, which was using mid-infrared light to observe materials that would be blocked at visible wavelengths, was much more powerful and detailed.

▲ Imaging differences between the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Webb Space Telescope at the same location.

You can continue to look forward to more images, because the main event has not yet come, the Webb Space Telescope will take spectacular color images of the universe in mid-July, and it is also the first scientific mission observation. The NASA team is currently The target object pointed by the telescope is still deliberately kept secret. On the one hand, the target may change with observation time, so it has not been completely selected from the list, and on the other hand, it is preparing for a big surprise reveal.

(Image credit: NASA)

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