NASA’s new space telescope has gazed into the distant universe and shown perfect vision: a spiky image of a faraway star photobombed by thousands of ancient galaxies. The image released Wednesday from the James Webb Space Telescope is a test shot—not an official science observation—to see how its 18 hexagonal mirrors worked together for a single coordinated image taken 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away from Earth. Officials said it worked better than expected. Last month, NASA looked at a much closer star with 18 separate images from its mirror segments. Scientists said they were giddy as they watched the latest test photos arrive. NASA’s test image was aimed at a star 100 times fainter than the human eye can see—2,000 light-years away. A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers). The shape of Webb’s mirrors and its filters made the shimmering star look more red and …
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