James Webb Space Telescope spotted by ESA's Gaia spacecraft for the first time

On 18 February, the NASA/ESA/Canadian Space Agency, James Webb Space Telescope was photographed by ESA’s Gaia observatory.

Both spacecraft are located at Lagrange point 2 (L2), 1.5 million km from Earth in the direction away from the Sun. Gaia arrived there in 2014, and Webb in January 2022.

Gaia orbits L2 in a Lissajous orbit. The James Webb Space Telescopes orbits L2 in a halo orbit.

On 18 February 2022, the two spacecraft were 1 million km apart, with an edge-on view of Gaia towards Webb’s huge sunshield. Very little reflected sunlight came Gaia’s way, and Webb therefore appears as a tiny, faint spec of light in Gaia’s two telescopes without any details visible.

this will happen again in the future several dozen times over the next few years.

Credit: ESA