The spectrograph provides three-dimensional ‘data cubes’ in which every pixel in an image contains a unique spectrum. The MRS is an integral-field spectrograph, which provides spectral and spatial information simultaneously for the entire field of view. “One of Webb’s most complex instrument modes is with the MIRI Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MRS).
We asked two of the MIRI commissioning team members – David Law, of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), and Alvaro Labiano, of the Centro de Astrobiologίa (CAB) – to explain this mode to us: This week we are featuring MIRI’s medium-resolution spectroscopy mode and sharing our first spectroscopic engineering data. That totals seven modes approved to date, with 10 still to go.
This week they checked off numbers (5) NIRCam grism time series and (4) imaging time series, both used to study exoplanets and other time-variable sources (12) NIRISS aperture masking interferometry mode, for direct detection of a faint object that is very close to a bright one (11) NIRISS wide-field slitless spectroscopy, for studying distant galaxies and (9) NIRSpec bright-object time series, for studying exoplanets. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team continues to work its way through the 17 science instrument modes.