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NASA’s $ 10 billion James Webb Space Telescope has had a rough encounter with an alien danger: it is streaked with micrometeoroids.
The micrometeorological impact does not appear to have significantly altered Web’s vision or made it incapable of making revolutionary observations of the universe, including capturing light emitted more than 13 billion years ago near the dawn of time. The telescope, launched from French Guiana at Christmas, is still being calibrated and, according to everyone, is performing well.
But the direct hit in the mirror surprised NASA and is still being analyzed. Details of the micrometeoroid impact were revealed by NASA in a blog post dedicated to Webb.
“Between May 23 and 25, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope struck one of its major mirror segments,” the NASA Web blog said. “After initial assessments, the team found that the telescope was still operating at a level that exceeded all mission requirements, despite a slight noticeable effect in the data.
The 18 segments of the mirror can be individually adjusted in response to meteorological shocks like this, NASA said.
“By adjusting the position of the affected segment, engineers can remove some of the distortion … although not all deterioration can be reversed this way,” the NASA blog said. “Engineers have already made the first such adjustment for the recently affected segment … and additional planned mirror adjustments will continue to refine this adjustment.”
The exact size of the micrometeoroid is unknown. It could have been no bigger than a grain of sand, said Heidi Hamel, a planetary astronomer who has long worked with the telescope. and will use it to study our solar system. Even something so small can cause damage due to the tremendous speed with which the telescope orbits the sun and periodically hits any particle.
This was a certain danger, because although he is alone in space, he is not as empty as he seems.
“There is no loss of science from this event. … This telescope is there in space – we knew there would be little impact on it. “We were just surprised that one hit so soon,” Hamel said.
She said scientists expected such an impact on average every five years.
This extremely complex observatory, declared the long-awaited successor to the still-functioning Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the sun in a position that holds it approximately 1 million miles from Earth. It is too far away for astronauts to visit and is not designed to be fixed or instruments exchanged.
Webb has been going through a “commissioning” phase for months as its instruments are calibrated and the 18 gilded, hexagonal mirrors are aligned to function as a massive mirror about 21 feet in diameter.
So far, NASA has announced nothing but success.
“Astronomers are dizzy with how well things are going (but also nervous not to irritate him, yes, we can also be superstitious) and eager to start doing science!” Said astrophysicist Michael Turner of Chicago in an email. university.
The telescope, folded over itself at launch last year, blossomed for many days when its outstretched sun shield opened and the mirrors unfolded. The telescope travels for 29 days to reach its outpost, an orbital position known as L2, where other telescopes operate safely and offer scientists micrometeorological frequency data.
“While the telescope was being built, engineers used a mixture of simulations and actual test effects on mirror samples to get a clearer idea of how to strengthen the orbiting observatory. “This latest impact was greater than modeled, and beyond what the team could test on the ground,” the NASA Web blog said.
Webb is different from most telescopes: it is wide open, with the mirrors exposed, not tucked away in a tube. The telescope is designed to observe the universe at infrared wavelengths that are beyond the reach of Hubble.
This requires mirrors and tools that are extremely cold, which is why mirrors are turned away from the Earth and the sun all the time. NASA announced that the photos of the “first light” will be released on July 12, but did not say what they will show.
However, he has already created an image of a star used to focus the mirrors. Against the backdrop of this image are many galaxies whose light was emitted billions of years ago, and this has excited astronomers who expect Webb to see deeper into space (and in the past) than Hubble, launched in 1990.
The Web has many purposes, including studying the earliest light in the universe, emitted several hundred million years after the Big Bang. It will also examine the evolution of galaxies and study objects in our own solar system, including small ice bodies orbiting the sun far beyond Neptune’s orbit.
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