In two days, the global Chinese will usher in the most anticipated and exciting Lunar New Year of the year, and at this festive time, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has just completed two very important actions: successfully arrived at the L2 point of The Sun-Earth Lagrange and selected the first observation target, of which James Weber's first observation target is highly anticipated, because in the eyes of many people, this may mean that this valuable space telescope can meet the design expectations, and just a few days ago, NASA announced through its official website that the first observation target of the James Webb Space Telescope is a solar-like star called HD 84406.
HD 84406 is a Sun-like star located in the constellation Ursa Major, located about 260 light-years from Earth, meaning "Big Bear" in Latin. The Big Dipper, as we know it, is actually located in this constellation, and it is the tail of this furry beast. The apparent magnitude of this star is about 6.9, and if you have no concept of the term visual magnitude, then as a comparison, in clear space, the full moon has an apparent magnitude of -12, the sun has an apparent magnitude of -26.71, and HD 84406 cannot be seen with the naked eye. To see the planet, you need to use a telescope.
Previously, the scientific community for James Weber's first observation target has had a variety of conjectures, many people are also actively advising and advising NASA, and now the mystery seems to be unveiled, so why can this obscure HD 804406 for most people enter NASA's eyes and become James Weber's first observation target?
In fact, the answer may be unexpected, because the James Webb Lookout Space Telescope works in infrared mode, its mirror is always facing away from the sun, which leads to its working angle of about 39% of the sky area, and James Webb's commissioning period is as long as 3 months, so during its commissioning, the selected observation target needs to be located in its viewing angle area for a long time, and the HD 804406 just meets the above key conditions, so NASA finally selected HD 804406 It was James Webb's first observational target.
In fact, to be precise, the HD 804406 was the first tuning target selected by the James Webb Space Telescope to debug the telescope's engineered system, and was therefore not the official target of James Webb. According to Jonathan Gardner, deputy senior project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and Alexander Larlockwood, a scientist in the James Weber Science Communications Program at the Space Telescope Science Institute, "Once the telescope gets to work, HD 84406 will be too bright to be studied by James Webb, but for now, it's the perfect target to start our search for photons." That is, when the James Webb Space Telescope begins to work after commissioning is over, stars as bright as HD 804406 cannot be officially observed because, although difficult to detect with the naked eye, they are still too bright for James Webb and may permanently damage expensive observation instruments."
In addition, the James Webb Space Telescope has also completed an important technical adjustment, that is, the telescope's communication with the Earth is switched to the Ka band, which has a higher rate to descend data, before which James Webb used the S band to communicate with the Earth.
The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope are expected to be available sometime this summer, and we're looking forward to what kind of stunning images of the universe this $10 billion telescope will give us.