This is the first image captured by the James Webb Telescope | Digital Trends Spanish

NASA published this Friday, February 11, the first image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, launched in December last year.

This is a photograph pointing to a bright, isolated star in the constellation Ursa Major. It has received the name of HD 84406 and, according to those in charge of the mission, it is used to calibrate the instrument.

This is the historical image:

It is also part of the first phase of a months-long process that seeks to align the main mirror via the infrared camera instrument.

The result of this important procedure is a mosaic of images of 18 points of starlight arranged apparently randomly.

A few weeks ago, those in charge of this mission stated that the first image from the telescope would be blurry. The important thing is that the record will serve as a basis for aligning and focusing the telescope.

“The entire Webb team is ecstatic at how well the first steps of imaging and aligning the telescope are going. We were so happy to see light reaching NIRCam,” said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for the NIRCam instrument.

The good news is that from now on, the images James Webb manages to capture should be of better resolution, with more detail and a higher level of clarity.

This would allow scientists to identify more details in the images, so they are anxious to see what they will find. It is estimated that these first scientific images could be revealed in the summer.

Bonus pictures! When it’s time to focus, sometimes you need to take a good look at yourself.

This “selfie” taken by Webb of its primary mirror was not captured by an externally mounted engineering camera, but with a special lens within its NIRCam instrument. #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/XtzCdktrCA

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) February 11, 2022

The James Webb Space Telescope is already at its final destination, the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2), located 1.5 million kilometers from our planet.

It is a strategic place, a point of gravitational balance where the influence of the Earth and the Sun are not a threat to its orbit of operations.

Thus, according to the engineers in charge, the telescope will be able to observe the cosmos from a unique perspective.

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