NASA shares first "selfie" photograph taken by James Webb Space Telescope

The first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope were unveiled Friday: a "selfie" showing the observatory's 21.3-foot-wide primary mirror and a mosaic showing multiple images of a nondescript star being used to align the 18 segments making up the telescope's main mirror.

While the blurry, misaligned pictures might disappoint the uninitiated, they are almost exactly what engineers were expecting at this point in the observatory's complex commissioning, 48 days after its Christmas Day launch.

"This amazing telescope has not only spread its wings, but it has now opened its eyes," said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical elements manager.