The James Webb Space Telescope suffers its first notable impact from a micrometeorite. (Art image credit: NASA).
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The James Webb Space Telescope suffers its first notable impact from a micrometeorite. (Art image credit: NASA).
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We are just over a month away from seeing the first scientific images from the world’s most powerful telescope, but as expected, there are micrometeorites in their path. NASA announced that he James Webb Space Telescope It recently suffered the first notable impact of a micrometeorite on one of its primary mirror segments.
Micrometeorites or micrometeoroids are small rock particles. There are billions of these in space, something that was well known before the launch of the new observatory. These impacts in themselves are nothing new, they were expected to happen and Webb is designed to take a “beating” of this kind. One small detail is that the micrometeorite that collided with Webb recently is larger than expected, but don’t worry, it’s still working.
“In late May, Webb was struck by a dust-sized micrometeoroid on a segment of the primary mirror. Not to worry: Webb continues to function at a level that exceeds all mission requirements,” Webb’s team reported.
Micrometeoroid strikes are an unavoidable aspect of operating any spacecraft, and we expect that impacts will continue to occur throughout Webb’s lifetime. Our team built and tested the mirror on the ground anticipating such events. More details: https://t.co/mw203VHmb8
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) June 8, 2022
It is inevitable that Webb will collide with some tiny rocks on his way, so far four impacts have been detected, this last being the largest that exceeded expectations. Events like this will continue for Webb’s lifetime and he’s bound to hold up well (hopefully) since there’s no repair mission.
“With Webb’s mirrors exposed to space, we expected that occasional micrometeorite impacts would degrade the telescope’s performance over time,” said Lee Feinberg, director of the Webb Optical Telescope Element at NASA Goddard. “Since launch, we have had four smaller measurable micrometeorite impacts that were consistent with expectations and this most recent one that is larger than our degradation predictions assumed. We will use this flight data to update our analysis of performance over time and also to develop operational approaches to ensure we maximize Webb imagery performance to the best of our ability for many years to come.”
As explained by NASA, the Webb’s mirror was designed to withstand being bombarded from the environment by micrometeorites in its orbit around Sun-Earth L2 from dust-sized particles flying at extreme speeds. While the telescope was being built, engineers used a mix of simulations and actual test impacts on mirror samples to get a better idea of how to fortify the observatory for operation in orbit.
This latest impact was larger than had been calculated and exceeded what the team could prove on Earth. Fortunately, analysis shows that the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect on the data.
The date of the start of scientific observations is maintained. On July 12 will reveal the first full color images and the first scientific data from the James Webb Space Telescope. In this way, the team hopes to demonstrate Webb’s capabilities by officially opening his scientific observations, exploring the universe as never before.
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