NASA's special "Webb-cam," the camera in a giant clean room at NASA Goddard, now has "double vision." Two video cameras focus on what's happening with the very first completed instrument that will fly onboard the James Webb Space Telescope.
The James Webb Space Telescope contains four science instruments, but only one of them, the MIRI, sees light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Mid-infrared light is longer in wavelength than that which the other Webb instruments are designed to observe. This unique capability of the MIRI allows the Webb telescope to study physical processes occurring in the cosmos that the other Webb instruments cannot see. The MIRI will be integrated into the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Structure, and viewers of the "Double Vision Webb Cams" can see it happen.
The MIRI's sensitive detectors will allow it to make unique observations including the light of distant galaxies, newly forming stars within our own Milky Way, the formation of planets around stars other than our own, as well as planets, comets, and the outermost debris disk in our own solar system.
Also: Learn about transmitter signal suppression in a duplex telescope.
