On 18 February, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope was photographed by ESA’s Gaia observatory.
Both spacecraft are located at Lagrange point 2 (L2), 1.5 million km from Earth in the direction away from the Sun. Gaia arrived there in 2014, and Webb in January 2022.
Gaia orbits L2 in a Lissajous orbit. The James Webb Space Telescopes orbits L2 in a halo orbit.
On 18 February 2022, the two spacecraft were 1 million km apart, with an edge-on view of Gaia towards Webb’s huge sunshield. Very little reflected sunlight came Gaia’s way, and Webb therefore appears as a tiny, faint spec of light in Gaia’s two telescopes without any details visible.
This animation was created with Gaia Sky.
Click here for original story, Gaia snaps photo of Webb (animation)
Source: ESA Top Multimedia