NASA’s powerful new space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, was pelted by a larger-than-expected microscopic meteor in late May, causing some detectable damage to one of the spacecraft’s 18 main mirror segments. The effect meant the mission team had to correct distortion from the shot, but NASA said the telescope “continues to operate at a rate that exceeds all mission requirements.”
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is a very powerful next generation space telescope from NASA, Designed to look into the farthest reaches of the universe We take a timely look at the stars and galaxies that formed just after the Big Bang. commissioned by NASA Nearly 10 billion dollars to build And more than two decades to complete. But on Christmas Day 2021, Telescope finally launched into spacewhere does he live The opening process is very complex Before It reached its final destination about a million miles from Earth.
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Since its launch, JWST has been exposed to at least four different nitrogens, According to the NASA blog, but these are all small and of the size NASA hopes the observatory will encounter. A subtle meteor is usually a small part of an asteroid, Usually smaller than a grain of sand. However, the plane that crashed into JWST in May was larger than the agency had prepared, although the agency did not specify the exact size. NASA acknowledged that the attack, which occurred between May 23 and May 25, caused a “little detectable impact on the data” and engineers are continuing to analyze the impact of the collision.
NASA predicts that the space planet James Webb will collide with small space particles during its lifetime; Fast-moving space rock patches are just an inevitable feature of the space environment. In fact, NASA designed the telescope’s gold-plated mirror to withstand the blow by small space debris over time. The space agency is also combining Earth simulations and testing with mirror samples to determine how best to strengthen the mirrors to withstand the impact of micrometeorites. However, NASA said that the model they used for this simulation did not have a meteorite this small, and that it was “beyond what the team was able to test on Earth.”
However, this doesn’t come as a complete surprise. “We’ve always known that Webb had to contend with the extraterrestrial environment, which includes harsh ultraviolet rays and charged particles from the sun, cosmic rays from alien sources in the galaxy, and accidental attacks by micrometeorites in our solar system,” Paul Geithner, technical and deputy project director, said at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in a statement.
Engineers also have the ability to steer JWST’s mirrors and instruments away from a shower of space debris, if NASA can see it coming. The problem, however, is that this precise meteor is not part of the rain, so NASA considers it an “inevitable coincidence.” However, the agency set up an engineering team to find potential ways to avoid or mitigate the effects of a micrometeorite attack of this magnitude. And because JWST is so sensitive, the telescope will also help NASA gain a better understanding of how many micrometeorites are in the space environment.
Despite the blow, NASA remains optimistic in its post about the future of JWST. According to the blog, “Webb’s early life performance still far exceeded expectations, and the observatory was fully capable of doing the science it was designed to accomplish.” Engineers can also adjust the affected mirror to help eliminate data distortion. The mission team has done this and will continue to tinker with the mirror from time to time to get the best results. This is a process that will continue throughout the planned life of JWST for five to 10 years as new observations are made and events unfold. At the same time, NASA warns that engineers will not be able to completely eliminate the impact of the strike.
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NASA engineers had to build the JWST to be so powerful because the telescope was self-sustaining in space. Unlike its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which is currently in Earth orbit, JWST was not designed to be usable. This means that if something major happens to the spacecraft, engineers will have to figure out how to fix it from Earth. There is no possibility at this time to send humans or a robotic spacecraft to modify the JWST. This means that JWST will have to live with its lightly damaged mirror until the end of its mission, and NASA expects the spacecraft to be hit by more debris over time.
Meanwhile, the strike does not appear to have affected JWST’s schedule. In fact, the news of this microscopic meteor comes just a month before the achievement of a major mission. After spending the last few months precisely calibrating the JWST’s instruments and aligning the spacecraft’s mirrors precisely, the mission team is preparing to unveil the first full-color images of the JWST on July 12. NASA won’t say what the images will look like, but they have to be awesome.
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