Up on the monitor in the James Webb Space Telescope Flight Control Room is an image of the planet Jupiter. Although slightly blurred, it is unmistakable, its characteristic stripes and huge Great Red Spot beaming down on a group of reporters touring the room at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

Carl Starr, Webb's Mission Operations Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope, clicks a computer mouse, and the next image appears. "We decided to apply the coronagraph to it," he said, referring to a telescope attachment that can block out a bright object to observe what surrounds it. Jupiter suddenly darkens as its moons and faint rings materialize.

The images of Jupiter that Starr has shown the group are the last of a collection of unreleased test photos taken as part of the telescope's alignment and calibration process. "So you see, these are just hot off the presses," Starr said. "These images are raw images that haven't been doctored, haven't been cleaned up. But this is what the telescope is doing."