Astronomy asks questions about how the first stars and galaxies began to form, and what ultimately led to our existence.
However, even the largest space telescope is only as good as its instruments are, and here the NIRSpec spectrograph comes on the scene.
Its task is to divide the infrared light collected by Webb into its constituent wavelengths and form a spectrum. By measuring how the brightness of an object changes in space at different wavelengths, astronomers can extract a huge amount of information about its physical characteristics and chemical composition.
The first NIRSpec images and data are coming back to Earth. As soon as the painstaking analysis is completed, we will receive new answers to the questions so important for understanding our own existence.
