The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has now marked yet another milestone.
The 18 separate hexagonal mirrors which make up the primary mirror have to be focused step-by-step to work together to form a single focused image on its secondary mirror.
The first pictures released by NASA in early February showed 18 smudges of starlight, which were then each gradually brought into focus.
Now, the 18 separate images have been focused on top of one another, or “stacked,” to show one image of the star.
However, the image is just each separate image superimposed on each other; NASA has more work to do to fine-tune the focus, so that the entire array functions as a single mirror, and the central image is in sharp focus on the secondary mirror.
