After taking a multitude of hits from micrometeoroids in deep space, NASA will implement a new strategy to minimize future damage to the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope is the most powerful ever launched into space, but its sensitive mirrors have proven vulnerable to damage from micrometeoroids as they fly past.
“To ensure all parts of the observatory continue to perform at their best, NASA convened a working group of optics and micrometeoroid experts from NASA Goddard’s Webb team, the telescope’s mirror manufacturer, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the NASA Meteoroid Environmental Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center,” reads a statement from NASA.
As UPI reported, the James Webb telescope was damaged in May of 2022 when a micrometeoroid struck one of the 18 gold-plated mirrors that Webb uses to gather light from the depths of space. “After thorough analysis, the team concluded the higher-energy impact observed in May was a rare statistical event both in terms of energy, and in hitting a particularly sensitive location on Webb’s primary mirror,” NASA’s statement read.
However, the incident in May was not the last hit the telescope mirrors would take. “We have experienced 14 measurable micrometeoroid hits on our primary mirror, and are averaging one to two per month, as anticipated. The resulting optical error from all but one of these were well within what we had budgeted and expected when building the observatory,” said Mike Menzel, Webb lead mission systems engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
What exactly are micrometeoroids, anyway? The short answer is, they’re small particles of rock, weighing less than a gram. These tiny meteors, a.k.a. micrometeoroids, are small enough to make it past the Earth’s atmosphere and land on the surface. But according to Science Direct, out in deep space, it’s essentially considered to be cosmic dust. “Solar system dust is finely divided particulate matter that exists between the planets. These cosmic dust particles are also often called micrometeoroids, and range in size from assemblages of a few molecules to tenth-millimeter-sized grains, above which size they are called meteoroids.”
In an effort to minimize the risk and attempt to prevent more serious damage to the telescope from the flying debris, the James Webb team decided that “future observations will be planned to face away from what are now known as ‘micrometeoroid avoidance zones.'”
“Micrometeoroids that strike the mirror head on have twice the relative velocity and four times the kinetic energy, so avoiding this direction when feasible will help stand the exquisite optical performance for decades,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA Goddard.
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