Webb Telescope Shakes Off Impact From Tiny Space Rock

upstart writes:

The space telescope's mirror was hit by a micrometeoroid, but it's still in great shape to carry out its mission:

NASA said today that one of the Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror segments was hit by a micrometeoroid, a small asteroid fragment, between May 23 and May 25. Initial assessments of the telescope found that the spacecraft was still performing exceptionally well, though the effects of the impact were noticeable in recent data readouts.

Micrometeoroids are extremely small (dust-sized), fast-moving space debris. They're a regular part of a hostile space environment that will bombard the Webb telescope throughout its years in operation.

"With Webb's mirrors exposed to space, we expected that occasional micrometeoroid impacts would gracefully degrade telescope performance over time," said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA, in an agency release. "Since launch, we have had four smaller measurable micrometeoroid strikes that were consistent with expectations and this one more recently that is larger than our degradation predictions assumed."

[...] Thankfully, Paul Geithner, a technical deputy project manager at NASA, said in the release that "We designed and built Webb with performance margin - optical, thermal, electrical, mechanical - to ensure it can perform its ambitious science mission even after many years in space."

See also: Webb: Engineered to Endure Micrometeoroid Impacts

Original Submission

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.