From the Lab: James Webb space telescope captures images of glittering galaxies

Even though it has only recently started taking observations, the James Webb Space Telescope has captured some of the sharpest and most detailed images of galaxies, nebulae and the distant universe.

Pierre-Olivier Lagage is astrophsyics research director at the French Atomic Energy Commission. © Dhananjay Khadilkar

Launched on 21 December 2021, JWST consists of a 6.5-metre diameter mirror made up of 18 hexagonal segments. The telescope is equipped with four instruments: Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam); Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and Fine Guidance Sensors/Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (FGS/NIRISS). It is in orbit 1.5 million km from Earth.

French scientists contributed to the development of MIRI. The instrument consists of a spectrograph, MRS (MIRI medium-resolution spectrometer), and an imager called MIRIM.

As the prime contractor for the MIRI imager, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission or CEA designed, assembled and tested the device in collaboration with three other French labs.

Pierre-Olivier Lagage, who is the co-princival investigator of MIRI, termed the first images taken by JWST as incredible. "For example, we can look inside the molecular clouds in the Carina nebula. What impressed me most was that when you zoom in, you see extraordinary details that had never been seen before."

Lagage will be using the telescope to study exoplanets, those planets that orbit stars outside the solar system. "Thanks to JWST, we will be able to characterise the molecular content of the atmosphere of exoplanets. This is the second chapter in the study of exoplanets'" he said.