HIGHLIGHTS

On Christmas Day 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope was launched.

The James Webb Orbit Telescope has completed its journey into space.

Hubble will be succeeded by the James Webb Space Telescope.

WHY IN NEWS 

NASA has launched a three-month procedure to calibrate its James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) so that it may begin doing what it was designed to do: explore the universe like never before. It also recently observed the first atoms of light make their way through the whole telescope. So far, scientists have come the closest to achieving their end objective with the telescope. The photographs will stay blurry during the first procedure, and scientists will utilise them to fine-tune the telescope gradually. By the summer of this year, the observatory should be ready for science.

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NASA'S TWEET : James Webb Space Telescope Begins Three Month Aligning Process 

According to NASA, the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on James Webb's telescope detected the first photons of sunlight that passed through the telescope. NASA said that a team of engineers and scientists would now use the NIRCam data to progressively align the telescope's 18 mirrors to construct a new lens. Last Christmas, James Webb was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Since then, scientists have used a variety of methods to unravel it. The telescope reached the Lagrange Point 2 (L2), roughly 1.5 million kilometres from Earth on its nightside, exactly a month after launch, from where it will peacefully view the fascinating happenings of the cosmos. In space, L2 is a gravitationally stable location.

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The telescope's 'instruments are cooling,' according to John Mather, the project's principal scientist, but they have begun to identify individual light particles (photons). According to a report by Space.com, Nobel Laureate and astrophysicist John Mather said there are no images to show the world yet, but he hoped they would be able to develop images soon. The telescope's commissioning would take far longer than past space observatories, NASA stated in a statement, since James Webb's primary mirror is made up of 18 distinct mirror segments that must function together as a single high-precision optical surface.

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It will take around five months for James Webb to complete a thorough licensing process before it can begin working. Its photographs are likely to differ from those obtained by Hubble since it will view objects mostly in infrared, whereas Hubble employs a variety of infrared wavelengths as well as visible light.