14 DAY TRIAL // On a personal note, I'm very happy to hear that the people in charge of building the world's most advanced telescope finally managed to move past all obstacles, and proceed with assembling the satellites. Now, one of its most important instrument has arrived at NASA.
Experts at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland, took possession of the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on May 29. The device was constructed by a consortium of European companies, and delivered to the European Space Agency (ESA) on May 9.
MIRI has already been placed inside the James Webb Space Telescope's Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM), which is basically its instrument payload. Goddard scientists are currently investigating the instrument to see whether it suffered any damage en route.
“MIRI will enable Webb to distinguish the oldest galaxies from more evolved objects that have undergone several cycles of star birth and death. MIRI also will provide a unique window into the birth places of stars,” says ISIM project scientist Matt Greenhouse.