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Have you ever tried looking at a far away object, but had an annoyingly bright light source nearby? It helps to put your hand up, and block off the nearby light source or reflection. I think I first tried doing this at about age 5.

NASA’s latest telescope does something very similar, but on a more sophisticated level. The James Webb Space Telescope has an eight million-pixel infrared detector (that’s the telescope’s eye). In front of the detector there are 62,000 shutters measures 100 by 200 microns, or roughly the width of three to six human hairs, arranged in four identical grids in a layout of 171 rows by 365 columns. The shutters can close to help the detector only detect weaker sources of far away light.

For more, check out the NASA press release: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/jan/HQ_07014_Webb_microshutters.html

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