When the James Webb Space Telescope released five stunning images of the universe earlier this month, it brought decades of precise engineering and astronomical work to the forefront. When these images were revealed last week, the buildup was so intense that NASA administrator Bill Nelson compared the scene to a rally instead of a supposedly stable scientific meeting.
However, this pep may have dissipated since last week in light of recent news that the telescope, despite its immense technological sophistication, has suffered irreparable damage due to a micrometeoroid.
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According to a report published in the prepress database arXiv.org, a small rock collided with one of the telescope’s 18 golden mirrors, causing significant damage in the process. More specifically, the C3 mirror has a bright white tooth where there should be gold at the location where the micrometeoroid impacted. Although NASA describes the damage as “incorrigible,” they added that it has not harmed the telescope’s overall performance.
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“The micrometeoroid that hit the C3 segment during the period 22-24 May 2022 UT caused a significant incorrigible change in the overall figure for this segment,” the report explains. “However, the effect was small at the full level of the telescope because only a small part of the telescope’s area was affected.” The report explains that “two subsequent realignment steps” helped correct the problem.
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Scientific Mission Directorate, foreshadowed the agency’s ability to overcome this setback when he tweeted in June about the first reports of micrometeoroid impacts on the telescope.
“Micrometeoroid shocks are an inevitable aspect of space operation,” Zurbuchen wrote. “Recently, Webb [telescope] had an impact on a primary mirror segment. After initial evaluations, the team found that the telescope still operates at a level that exceeds all mission requirements. “
The new arXiv.org report goes on to explain that the small pebble that struck the C3 mirror was actually just one of 19 that collided with the James Webb Space Telescope between February and May 2022.
The James Webb Space Telescope is especially vulnerable to micrometreoid hits because the telescope’s mirrors are open and exposed to the vacuum of space. The Hubble Space Telescope, for all intents and purposes, Webb’s technological predecessor, had a cylindrical casing inside which was the observation technology. In contrast, the Webb telescope is functionally a giant reflector open into space without a protective cover.
However, aside from being smaller overall, the other reason Hubble has been remarkably damage-free over the years is because of its location in space. Hubble orbits comfortably just above Earth, close enough that space shuttle astronauts could approach and maintain it; while the Webb telescope is far away at a stable point in space where the sun and the gravity of the Earth are perfectly opposed, so that the telescope remains still in relation to the Earth. However, because few spacecraft have been sent to this point in space, known as the L2 point, short for LaGrange Point, astronomers have less knowledge of the risk of micrometeoroids in the region. In contrast, the low-to-medium Earth orbit, where Hubble lives, is saturated with human spacecraft, and therefore its risks are well studied.
The space news website Space.com had an unfavorable view of the otherwise optimistic tone of the new NASA report.
“Micrometreoids are a known danger from space operations, and tackling them is not at all new to scientists; the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope are among the long-running programs that are still operational despite the occasional crashes with space rocks, ”Space.com. he wrote. “However, Webb’s orbit at Lagrange 2 point one million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth can change the risk profile considerably.”
Despite the setback with the C3 mirror, the James Webb space telescope has still been an undeniable success so far. In one of its recently published images, the telescope checked the composition of the atmosphere of a distant planet called WASP-96b (which contained water). Other published images showed a planetary nebula called the Southern Ring Nebula; five nearly adjacent galaxies aptly named “Stephan’s Quintet”; the Carina Nebula, which searches the world like a horsehair blanket lying on a bright, colorful sky full of stars; and the soft name SMACS 0723, which is the clearest and most complete infrared image ever produced of the distant universe.