A micrometeoroid hits the newly deployed James Webb Space Telescope, leaving one of its gold-plated mirrors out of alignment, according to NASA on the May incident.
NASA says micrometeoroid attacks are an “inevitable aspect of the operation of any spacecraft” and “anticipated when the mirror was built and tested.” (AP file)
A James Webb space telescope mirror was hit by a micrometeoroid last month, but is expected to continue operating normally, NASA said.
“After initial assessments, the team found that the telescope is still operating at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect on the data,” the US space agency said on Thursday.
“Webb’s early life performance is still well above expectations and the observatory is fully capable of performing the science for which it was designed,” he added.
One of the primary mirror segments of the space observatory was hit by a micrometeoroid, which is usually smaller than a grain of sand, between May 23 and 25.
NASA said the micrometeoroid attacks are an “inevitable aspect of the operation of any spacecraft” and “anticipated when the mirror was built and tested.”
“This more recent impact was greater than it was modeled and beyond what the team could have tested on the ground,” he said.
Lee Feinberg, Webb Optical Telescope’s element manager at NASA Goddard, said that “with Webb’s mirrors exposed in space, we expected the occasional impact of micrometeoroids to gracefully degrade the telescope’s performance over time.
“Since the launch, we’ve had four strokes of smaller measurable micrometeoroids that were consistent with expectations,” Feinberg said.
Study of spatial aspects
The telescope, which is expected to cost NASA nearly $ 10 billion, is among the most expensive science platforms ever built, comparable to its predecessor Hubble and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
Webb’s mission includes the study of distant planets, known as exoplanets, to determine their origin, evolution, and habitability, and “spectacular color images” are expected in mid-July. of the cosmos.
The telescope has spent the last few months aligning its instruments in preparation for the big revelation.
NASA said that to protect Webb, flight crews can move the optics away from known meteor showers.
He said the May micrometeoroid attack was not the result of a meteor shower but an “inevitable accidental event”.
Source: AFP