Astronomy

Ask Astro: What causes the pattern of diffraction spikes in astronomical images?

I learned in October 2022’s Breakthrough that the spikes of stars in high-power photos are called diffraction spikes. Why do they appear as two crosses at 45 degrees to each other? The diffraction ...
Forbes

Why Do The Stars In The Webb Telescope’s First Images Have Eight Weird ‘Snowflake’ Spikes?

Did you have the same question as I did when you looked at the spectacular first light images from the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or “Webb” for short)? Yes, they are all incredible, ...
Futurism

Once You Notice This Weird Thing About James Webb Space Telescope Images, You Won’t Be Able to Unsee It

Add Futurism (opens in a new tab) More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Ever ...
The Verge

Why stars look spiky in images from the James Webb Space Telescope

Stars in the new images from the James Webb Space Telescope look sharper than they did before. And I’m not just talking about the image quality, which is astounding. I’m talking about the fact that ...