Star light, star bright, the James Webb Space Telescope has seen its first star (though it wasn't quite tonight)—and even taken a selfie, NASA announced Friday.

The steps are part of the months-long process of aligning the observatory's enormous golden mirror that astronomers hope will begin unraveling the mysteries of the early Universe by this summer.

The first picture sent back of the cosmos is far from stunning: 18 blurry white dots on a black background, all showing the same object: HD 84406 a bright, isolated star in the constellation Ursa Major.

Ten years ago today, ESA opened a new era of independent access to space with the inaugural flight of its small launcher Vega. Flying from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, Vega has gone on to earn a reputation for precision and versatility in anticipation of a more capable version, Vega-C.

Placing medium-sized satellites into the low Earth polar orbits that are ideal for scientific and Earth observation missions—about 1430 kg to 700 km—is Vega's trademark capability. But the vehicle has also delivered an ESA science mission to deep space—the gravitational wave detector demonstration mission, LISA Pathfinder—and followed the equatorial flight path needed for an experimental IXV "lifting body" payload that paved the way for a European launchpad-to-runway space transportation service, with ESA's uncrewed Space Rider vehicle.