A glimpse inside how the James Webb Space Telescope was put together

THESE pictures supply a glimpse into a rare challenge three a long time in the making: the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST.

Launched in 2021 on Christmas Day, JWST took its first picture in July 2022, laying naked a discipline of never-before-seen galaxies in unprecedented readability. It has since uncovered new exoplanets and the space round a supermassive black gap, whereas upending what we thought we knew about the early universe and astronomical objects akin to nebulae.

Its conception, growth and launch are documented in a brand new ebook, Inside the Star Factory, by photographer Chris Gunn and author Christopher Wanjek. Taken from the ebook, the important picture from 2017 reveals JWST’s Optical Telescope Element (OTE, referred to as its “eye”). Its 18 gold-plated mirrors together type a 6.5-metre-wide reflector for infrared mild.

Part of what makes JWST extra delicate than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, is the indisputable fact that it sees in infrared, so it could actually scour interstellar distances past the seen mild spectrum. Another essential component is the big reflector – six instances the measurement of Hubble’s – that enables the visualisation of far-off objects and phenomena.

The OTE and reflector are present process a nighttime, lights-off inspection in the picture above, whereas the picture beneath captures the first moments the mirrors have been unveiled, as an engineer assesses the floor of one in every of them for any artefacts.

“I remember standing in the glow of the gold and realizing that I had never stood next to something so precious,” writes Gunn in the ebook, which is out on 17 October.