See an image taken by James Webb's MIRI instrument [space news]

Описание: NASA’s #JamesWebb Space Telescope is aligned across all four of its science instruments. Now, Webb’s team focus on Webb’s coldest instrument: the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI.

The MIRI test image (at 7.7 microns) shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud. This small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way provided a dense star field to test Webb’s performance.

Here, a close-up of the MIRI image is compared to a past image of the same target taken with #NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera (at 8.0 microns). The retired #Spitzer telescope was one of NASA’s Great Observatories and the first to provide high-resolution images of the near- and mid-infrared universe. Webb, with its significantly larger primary mirror and improved detectors, will allow us to see the infrared sky with improved clarity, enabling even more discoveries.

For example, Webb’s MIRI image shows the interstellar gas in unprecedented detail. Here, you can see the emission from molecules of carbon and hydrogen that play an important role in the thermal balance and chemistry of interstellar gas. When #Webb is ready to begin science observations, studies such as these with #MIRI will help give astronomers new insights into the birth of stars and protoplanetary systems.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/05/0...