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James Webb was damaged by a micrometeorite impact
By Kajal Gupta - June 12, 2022
It is the nightmare of all astronauts and astronomers. Take damage from a micrometeorite impact. Invisible both to the naked eye for ISS astronauts during extravehicular outings and for the radars of the largest laboratories in the world, micrometeorites are a real plague in the world of space observation!
So when you launch a $20 billion space telescope 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, your worst nightmare is that it be damaged by a tiny meteorite, as big as a grain of sand. And that’s exactly what just happened to the James Webb Space Telescope.
A mission that went perfectly
Launched on December 25, this engineering gem had required more than 20 years of work from NASA and as many billions of dollars of investment. A true titan of the air, he took off from Kourou in French Guiana, before heading to point L2. A place in the solar system where the laws of gravity balance, and which allows it to stay in place, rotating around the Sun at the speed of the Earth.
While everything was going for the best for the space telescope. The latter having successfully deployed all of its devices. A micrometeorite whose size is yet to be confirmed (we are talking here about an object smaller than a fingernail) hit the golden mirror of the telescope, partially damaging it.
According to NASA, there is no reason to worry. Indeed, the telescope is still operational “at a level that exceeds all requirements”, assures the American space agency. According to the first reports of this incident which occurred at the end of May, the telescope was hit by an object of a “larger than expected” size, which caused a distortion on the one of the 18 golden panels that make up the telescope’s main mirror.
NASA assures that everything is fine
This small incident should be quickly corrected by NASA, which will have to review how to analyze the data received, taking into account this accident on one of the 18 panels.
While impacts with micrometeorites were unavoidable for NASA and the JWST, Paul Geithner, NASA project manager, did not expect a micrometeorite of this size to hit the telescope, especially not before that the latter takes the first “real” photo in its history.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvauOoJmD
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James Webb was damaged by a micrometeorite impact
By Kajal Gupta - June 12, 2022
It is the nightmare of all astronauts and astronomers. Take damage from a micrometeorite impact. Invisible both to the naked eye for ISS astronauts during extravehicular outings and for the radars of the largest laboratories in the world, micrometeorites are a real plague in the world of space observation!
So when you launch a $20 billion space telescope 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, your worst nightmare is that it be damaged by a tiny meteorite, as big as a grain of sand. And that’s exactly what just happened to the James Webb Space Telescope.
A mission that went perfectly
Launched on December 25, this engineering gem had required more than 20 years of work from NASA and as many billions of dollars of investment. A true titan of the air, he took off from Kourou in French Guiana, before heading to point L2. A place in the solar system where the laws of gravity balance, and which allows it to stay in place, rotating around the Sun at the speed of the Earth.
While everything was going for the best for the space telescope. The latter having successfully deployed all of its devices. A micrometeorite whose size is yet to be confirmed (we are talking here about an object smaller than a fingernail) hit the golden mirror of the telescope, partially damaging it.
According to NASA, there is no reason to worry. Indeed, the telescope is still operational “at a level that exceeds all requirements”, assures the American space agency. According to the first reports of this incident which occurred at the end of May, the telescope was hit by an object of a “larger than expected” size, which caused a distortion on the one of the 18 golden panels that make up the telescope’s main mirror.
NASA assures that everything is fine
This small incident should be quickly corrected by NASA, which will have to review how to analyze the data received, taking into account this accident on one of the 18 panels.
While impacts with micrometeorites were unavoidable for NASA and the JWST, Paul Geithner, NASA project manager, did not expect a micrometeorite of this size to hit the telescope, especially not before that the latter takes the first “real” photo in its history.