The James Webb Space Telescope Gets Ready to Gaze Deep into the Universe

Carrying out the James Webb Space Telescope’s ground-breaking mission required powerful technological innovations in optics, detectors, mirrors and a multitude of other areas. JWST's unprecedented scientific power is partly a function of the size and extreme sensitivity of its primary mirror, which collects the images from space. The gold-plated mirror is 21 feet in diameter, giving a collecting area of 273 square feet.

After the launch, the mirror segments all pointed in different directions, thanks to both tremors during liftoff and thermal contractions caused by reduction in temperature. To make sure the segments were properly aligned, NASA chose a particularly bright star in Ursa Major as an alignment target, since it was relatively isolated from other stars and therefore easy to find. The mirrors were then adjusted until they all picked up the image of that star and the 18 images were merged into one.

Infrared radiation traveling from the target object in space is collected by the primary mirror, reflected onto the smaller secondary mirror and then directed into one of four scientific instruments which may focus, filter, or disperse the light. Four instruments are necessary because some are more suitable than others for observing specific types of objects such as planets, stars, nebulae and galaxies.

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