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> Testing of the JWST's mirrors
Testing of the JWST's mirrors
author: NASA/MSFC/Novapix
reference: e-sou05-90012
Image Size 300 DPI: 17 * 13 cm
Six of the 18 James Webb Space Telescope mirror segments are being moved into the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, or XRCF, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to eventually experience temperatures dipping to a chilling -414 degrees Fahrenheit to ensure they can withstand the extreme space environments. The test chamber takes approximately five days to cool a mirror segment to cryogenic temperatures. Marshall's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility is the world's largest X-ray telescope test facility and a unique, cryogenic, clean room optical test location. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope scheduled for launch in 2014. Equipped with a large mirror 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter, it will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy and will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.
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