A small meteoroid struck the newly deployed James Webb Space Telescope in May, leaving one of its golden mirrors out of alignment, but without changing the observatory’s orbiting schedule so that it will be operational soon, NASA said Wednesday. .
Key points:
- The micrometeoroid hit the telescope in late May, according to NASA
- It was the biggest impact on the telescope and left a small but noticeable effect
- NASA says the telescope “still operates at a level that exceeds all mission requirements”
The small space rock hit the $ 10 billion ($ 13.9 billion) telescope in late May and left a small but noticeable effect on the telescope’s data, NASA said in a statement. being the fifth and largest hit in the telescope since its appearance. December presentation.
“After initial assessments, the team found that the telescope was still operating at a level that exceeded all mission requirements,” NASA said.
“Exhaustive analysis and measurements are being done”.
Engineers have begun a delicate readjustment of the impacted mirror segment to help “cancel out some of the distortion” caused by the micrometeoroid, NASA said.
This image shows the star 2MASS J17554042 + 6551277 used to align the mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope. (NASA / STScI via AP)
Webb was parked in a solar orbit about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth in January and is expected to give its first full-color images of the cosmos in July.
“This recent impact did not lead to any changes in Webb’s program of operations,” NASA said.
Impact “bigger than modeled”
Webb’s mirror was designed to withstand bombardment with dust-sized particles flying at extreme speeds in space, but the most recent impact was “larger than modeled and beyond the team could have tested on the ground, “NASA said.
The NASA-managed space telescope is considered the most powerful space observatory ever built, with a set of sensors and 18 gold-plated mirror segments working together to search for distant planets and early galaxies. stages of the universe.
Engineers designed the telescope to withstand the occasional impact of micrometeoroids: small space rocks traveling at ultra-fast speeds during meteor showers near Webb’s location in space.
The James Webb space telescope mirror is seen at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland in 2016. (Reuters)
Last month’s micrometeoroid was not from any meteor showers, NASA said.
The U.S. space agency, calling the impact “an inevitable accidental event,” said it has now convened a team of engineers to study ways to avoid future impacts of similar space rocks.
The telescope is an international collaboration led by NASA in collaboration with European and Canadian space agencies. Northrop Grumman Corp. was the main contractor.
Reuters