Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph has "earned its stripes"! This is the third of Webb’s four science instruments to be declared ready for science operations. NIRSpec has shown it can capture infrared spectra (rainbows of light) from hundreds of targets at once, using about 250,000 tiny shutters to view and block specific parts of the sky. This test image shows more than 200 spectra from a region close to the center of our Milky Way galaxy; each horizontal stripe is a spectrum! NIRSpec can characterize everything from the faintest objects in the universe to the formation of galaxies to star clusters. Read more at the link in our bio! Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA and the NIRSpec team - Alt Text: Side by side black images with hundreds of golden/orange “stripes” on them. Each stripe is a spectrum. Each spectrum has small vertical lines, signatures from the object being observed. #JWST #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #NASA #Science #Spectroscopy #ESA #CanadianSpaceAgency #Space #UnfoldTheUniverse