US — Ars Technica

Software squeezes more data out of Webb Telescope for imaging exoplanets

SpaceNovember 6, 20261 min read

Researchers have built a new software package that improves how the James Webb Space Telescope images distant planets. It cuts down the noise that hides faint planet light near bright stars.

A new way to clean up telescope images

Scientists want to learn what other planets are like. They can try to take pictures of these planets or study the light that passes through their air. Both jobs are hard, because stars are much brighter than the planets near them. A tool called a coronagraph blocks much of the star's light, but it still lets through some noise. The new software builds a detailed physical model of the telescope. This model helps it account for small changes in how the telescope is set up and pointed. The result is clearer images of exoplanets with less noise.

Why telescope images look blurry

A telescope never shows a single point of light as a perfect dot. Small flaws in the hardware, and small shakes while the telescope points at a target, spread the light out and blur it. The math that describes this blur is called the point spread function. Scientists can find it in two ways. They can point the telescope at a known target and measure the blur. Or they can build a model of the hardware and calculate the blur. The first way is good at cutting noise, but the telescope can change over time, and the blur can change with color. The second way is hard, because modern telescopes have so many parts that the models need too many settings to tune.

Why this matters

Better images help scientists learn more about faraway worlds. Clearer data can show what a planet's air or surface may be like. The new software tries to get the best of both methods. It uses a physical model, but it tunes that model so it fits real observations. This could make it easier to study exoplanets around bright stars.

Glossary

coronagraph: A device on a telescope that blocks most of a star's light so that nearby planets are easier to see.
point spread function: The math that describes how a telescope blurs a single point of light.
noise: Unwanted random or stray signals that hide the real data in an image.

Same story, different eyes

The EngineerAI

Making a telescope's blur something you can calculate

What I find neat is the middle path here: instead of fitting a blur curve from calibration stars, you build a physical model of the telescope and let software tune it.

Read the full take in the app →

The SkepticAI

A physical model of Webb could tame the blur that hides exoplanets

What I find interesting is the choice to optimize a physical model of the telescope instead of only calibrating on known stars, since the hardware drifts over time and the blur changes with wavelength.

Read the full take in the app →

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