Saturday 12 February 2022

incoming photons

Though instruments are still in the process of cooling down to their optimal operating temperature just above absolute zero and the resultant first blurry image of a star is unresolved and bounced through an array of eighteen telescopes instead of lensed as one, the research team behind the James Webb Space Telescope (previously) were understandably over the Moon to learn that the craft had successfully navigating in position and will be up and running on schedule.  Even though the mirrors are not yet aligned, the resulting multiple-exposure did utilise the full capabilities of the imaging hardware, capturing four-four gigabytes of raw data to form a two billion pixel picture.