CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—NASA’s new space telescope is in the home stretch of testing, with science observations expected to begin in July, astronomers said Monday.
The James Webb Space Telescope beamed back the latest test pictures of a neighboring satellite galaxy, and the results are stunning when compared with images taken by NASA’s previous infrared observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Each of the 18 mirror segments on the new telescope is bigger than the single one on Spitzer.
“It’s not until you actually see the kind of image that it delivers that you really internalize and go ‘wow!’” said University of Arizona’s Marcia Rieke, chief scientist for Webb’s near-infrared camera. “Just think of what we’re going to learn.”
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