Science opportunities with the near-IR camera (NIRCam) on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

摘要

The Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) offers revolutionary gains insensitivity throughout the 1-5 μm region. NIRCam will enable great advances in all areas of astrophysics, from thecomposition of objects in our own Kuiper Belt and the physical properties of planets orbiting nearby stars to theformation of stars and the detection of the youngest galaxies in the Universe. NIRCam also plays an important role ininitial alignment of JWST and the long term maintenance of its image quality. NIRCam is presently undergoinginstrument Integration and Test in preparation for delivery to the JWST project. Key near-term milestones include thecompletion of cryogenic testing of the entire instrument; demonstration of scientific and wavefront sensing performancerequirements; testing of replacement H2RG detectors arrays; and an analysis of coronagraphic performance in light of measured telescope wavefront characteristics. This paper summarizes the performance of NIRCam, the scientific andeducation/outreach goals of the science team, and some results of the on-going testing program.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.