The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
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Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
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Images of the James Webb Space Telescope taken by ESA’s Gaia observatory on 18 February 2022.
Background frame: Cutout of the specially recorded image from Gaia’s sky mapper instrument at the first of the two observations from Gaia’s two telescopes. The reddish colour is artificial, chosen just for illustrative reasons. The frame shows a few relatively bright stars, several faint stars, a few disturbances – and a spacecraft. It is marked by the green circle.
Left grey inset: Zoom into the frame showing the Webb image at full resolution. It is the slightly extended speck of light in the centre. The other three bright dots are traces of energetic cosmic-ray particles which hit the CCD chip during the 2.5 seconds of exposure. The on-board software is capable of autonomously and reliably distinguishing these from star images.
Right grey inset: The second “photo” of Webb, taken in the second field of view of Gaia’s telescopes about 106.5 minutes after the first one. Each of the two images were created by just under 1000 sunlight photons arriving from the Webb spacecraft.