NIRCam Instrument Animation

  • Released Monday, April 27, 2020
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Turntable animation of the James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam instrument.

The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is Webb's primary imager that will cover the infrared wavelength range 0.6 to 5 microns. NIRCam will detect light from: the earliest stars and galaxies in the process of formation, the population of stars in nearby galaxies, as well as young stars in the Milky Way and Kuiper Belt objects. NIRCam is equipped with coronagraphs, instruments that allow astronomers to take pictures of very faint objects around a central bright object, like stellar systems. NIRCam's coronagraphs work by blocking a brighter object's light, making it possible to view the dimmer object nearby - just like shielding the sun from your eyes with an upraised hand can allow you to focus on the view in front of you. With the coronagraphs, astronomers hope to determine the characteristics of planets orbiting nearby stars.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Monday, April 27, 2020.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:45 PM EDT.