The James Webb Space Telescope suffered another setback. In fact, it was hit by a small meteor. explanations.
space telescope James Webb (JWST) It was hit by a small meteor on its primary mirror between May 23 and May 25. The power of a beautiful new move and he’s getting ready for it Take his first photo. Space is a particularly risky environment. So difficult conditions are very common.
The engineers who designed James Webb knew he was at risk of collision. So the primary mirror parts were made to be resistant to it. ” With Webb’s mirror exposure to space, we expected that the impacts of accidental micrometeorites would degrade the telescope’s performance over time.”said Lee Feinberg, head of optical telescope elements at JWST. ” Since launch, we’ve had four smaller meteor impacts that were in line with expectations, and this shock recently is larger than our assumed degradation predictions.”
In fact, the meteor that hit the telescope was larger than expected. Fortunately, NASA has announced that the telescope is still operating well, does not appear to be affected by the shock, and may still be able to image by July 12 as planned.
Finally, according to scientists, there are several ways to reduce the effects of meteor impacts: they can, for example, neutralize parts of the mirror. Also, according to them, the James Webb Telescope, which has a value of about 9.2 billion euros, should be affected by other space objects in the future.
