CORNING, N.Y. (WENY) - Corning Inc. announced that its advanced optics technologies played a role in capturing images from NASA's Webb Space Telescope.

This milestone builds on Corning's rich history of enabling space exploration, which began more than six decades ago when NASA's Project Mercury sent the first Americans into space.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the largest, most complex space telescope ever built. It extends the work of the Hubble Space Telescope, capturing images of distant galaxies, stars, and exoplanets in deep space.

Corning's Keene, New Hampshire facility engineered and manufactured key optical instruments for the telescope. The company says that these components help point and stabilize the entire telescope platform for data collection.

They say that it allows astronomers to determine the age and chemical mixture of distant objects.

"Our advanced optical solutions are enabling some of the most extreme applications in the depths of outer space," said David Meis, business director, Corning Advanced Optics. "We've supported the aerospace industry since its earliest days by creating custom optical components, and today, our technologies are critical to the data and image capture by the most impressive space telescope in the world. We're honored to celebrate this milestone alongside NASA."

To view photos taken by the JWST, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages.