The James Webb Space Telescope, the world’s most powerful space observatory, is now delivering sharper images than ever, thanks to a software breakthrough by two PhD students from Australia.
After the James Webb Space Telescope's launch in December 2021, astronomers discovered that its Aperture Masking Interferometer (AMI) – a mode designed for ultra-high-resolution imaging of stars and exoplanets – was underperforming.
Subtle electronic distortions in the infrared detector were introducing blur, especially in observations of faint targets.
When the Hubble Space Telescope faced a similar problem, it could only be corrected by NASA astronauts during costly Space Shuttle missions and spacewalks, but Webb is positioned too far from Earth for crewed missions to reach it.
However, students Max Charles and Louis Desdoigts from the University of Sydney, Australia found a way to fix the Webb Telescope's issues from Earth.
"Instead of sending astronauts to bolt on new parts, they managed to fix things with code," explains their tutor Peter Tuthill, who also created the AMI hardware.
The solution, called AMIGO (Aperture Masking Interferometry Generative Observations), uses advanced simulations and neural networks to model how the James Webb Space Telescope's optics and electronics behave in space.
The algorithms then ‘deblur’ the data, restoring the telescope’s full potential.
To celebrate their success in fixing the problems with the James Webb Space Telescope, Charles and Desdoigts decided to get matching tatoos.
Now, with AMIGO, Webb has achieved its sharpest detections yet of faint objects, including the direct imaging of a dim exoplanet and a nearby brown dwarf.
"It’s incredibly rewarding to see a software solution extend the telescope’s scientific reach," says Desdoigts.
"And to know it was possible without ever leaving the lab."
