NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will focus on Big Dipper, for its first assignment.
"Star light, star bright ... the first star Webb will see is HD 84406, a sun-like star about 260 light years away," NASA officials tweeted on Friday.
🌟 Star light, star bright…the first star Webb will see is HD 84406, a Sun-like star about 260 light years away. While it will be too bright for Webb to study once the telescope is in focus, it’s a perfect target for Webb to gather engineering data & start mirror alignment. pic.twitter.com/DleVjDZz8B
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) January 28, 2022
The mission crew is preparing the next-generation space telescope for observations now that JWST has arrived at its ultimate location in orbit.
According to the tweet, a bright point-like HD 84406 serves as a valuable target for the team to align JWST's honeycomb-shaped mirrors and begin capturing engineering data.
Although this star will be helpful for this purpose, the observatory will not investigate it until it begins its research missions.
NASA James Webb Space Telescope To See HD84406
According to a new NASA blog post, James Webb Space Telescope will explore HD 84406, a Sun-like star.
This star, which is around 260 light-years from Earth, will be used to collect engineering data so that NASA may align the telescope's mirrors for future observations.
A woman stands near a model of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland on April 2, 2015.
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NASA added that Webb's target is situated in the Ursa Major constellation and was chosen because Webb can see it at this time of year.
HD 84406 Target Explained
Ursa Major, which means "Big Bear" in Latin, is the constellation in which HD 84406 is situated. Space.com said the constellation includes the Big Dipper asterism (or star pattern), which is the tail of this fuzzy beast.
Astronomers may see the asterism of the Big Dipper, a particularly distinctive portion of the constellation Ursa Major, in the Polish sky on any clear, cloudless night. The star HD 84406, located just beyond the Big Dipper, will be used to align the telescope's mirrors.
The star has a visual magnitude of 6.9, making it difficult to view with the unaided eye. You'll need a telescope or high-powered binoculars to view the star.
How JWST Will Send Data From Far Away
According to Spider's Web, the first data to reach Earth will not be the most attractive. Instead of a single brilliant point star, the picture acquired by the telescope mirror will most likely depict eighteen images of the same star.
It is because, after unfolding the primary mirror, all of its hexagonal parts are not correctly positioned relative to one another, and the starlight reflected from them does not fall at the same spot on the receiver.
Engineers will determine the deviations of individual mirror segments based on these first photographs and arrange them so that they finally receive a clean image of one star.
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