Tiny shutters open on deep space

NASA engineers and scientists building the James Webb Space Telescope have used ‘microshutters,’ tiny doorways that will allow the telescope to see further than ever before.

The microshutters will enable scientists to mask unwanted light from foreground objects so the telescope can focus on the faint light of the first stars and galaxies that formed in the universe. The Webb Telescope will launch in the next decade and will be the first to use this technology.

In December 2006, the microshutters passed environmental testing to demonstrate that they can withstand the rigors of launching and placement in deep space. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre designed, tested and built the instrument technology. The microshutters will work in conjunction with the telescope's Near Infrared Spectrograph that is being built by the European Space Agency.

Each of the 62,000 shutters measures 100 by 200 microns, or roughly the width of three to six human hairs. The shutters are arranged in four identical grids that have a layout of 171 rows by 365 columns. These shutter grids are in front of an eight million-pixel infrared detector that records the light passing through the open shutters.