The small space rock struck the $ 10 billion telescope sometime in late May and left a small but significant impact on the telescope data, NASA said in a statement, noting that it was the fifth and largest impact on the telescope since its launch in December. . “After initial evaluations, the team found that the telescope was still performing at a level that exceeded all mission requirements,” NASA said. “Thorough analysis and measurements are in progress.” Engineers have begun a fine-tuning of the impacted part of the mirror to help “cancel out part of the distortion” caused by the micrometeorologist, NASA said. This combination of images provided by NASA on May 9 shows part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy of the Galaxy seen from the Spitzer Space Telescope on the left, and the new James Webb Space Telescope. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / The Associated Press) Webb landed on a solar orbit about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth in January and is expected to give the first color images of the universe in July. “This recent impact has not caused any change in Webb’s business plan,” NASA said.
The most powerful space observatory
Webb’s mirror was built to withstand bombardment of dust particles flying at extreme speeds in space, but the most recent impact was “larger than planned and beyond what the team could have experienced.” “on the ground,” NASA said. The NASA-operated space telescope is considered to be the most powerful space observatory ever built, with a series of sensors and 18 gold-plated mirror sections working together to search for distant planets as well as galaxies from the early stages of the universe. Engineers designed the telescope to withstand the occasional impact of micrometeorites – tiny space rocks that travel at extremely high speeds during projected meteor showers near the Webb site in space. Last month’s micrometeorology did not come from a meteor shower, NASA said. The US space agency, calling the crash “an inevitable accident”, said it had now called in a team of engineers to study ways to avoid future collisions from similar space rocks. The telescope is an international collaboration led by NASA in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.
