James Webb Space Telescope. (NASA)
Hitekno.com – Telescope space James Webb (JWST) belongs to NASA, just launched and started its job. But who would have thought that he was hit outer rock.
Even though the James Webb telescope was launched by NASA as a successor space telescope Hubble is entering its twilight period.
According to a NASA statement, one of the telescope’s large mirrors hit by a micrometeorid was larger than expected and larger than NASA engineers could test on Earth.
Although the assessment of the impact of the collision is still ongoing, but the JWST seems to be operating quite well.
“The collision, which occurred between May 23 and 25, did have a slightly detectable effect in the data,“said NASA in its announcement, as quoted from the Independent, Tuesday (14/6/2022).
NASA added that the telescope was indeed designed to withstand such an impact, even if the piece of space rock was larger than expected.
During the development process, the researchers used a mixture of simulated and actual impacts on mirrors to see how the telescope would be able to withstand the impact of the space rock, at very fast speeds.
“We know that JWST has to deal with a space environment, which includes harsh ultraviolet light and charged particles from the Sun, cosmic rays in the galaxy, to the occasional micrometeoroid strike within our solar system,” said Paul Geithner, JWST deputy project manager at the Flight Center. NASA’s Goddard Space.
However, given that JWST has been a mission for many years, the experts have designed JWST in such a way.
The telescope is reportedly capable of handling any collision by moving its mirrors to correct certain problems.
As a result of this collision, the mirror has been moved and further adjustments are still needed.
The telescope can also move through space, so engineers can move its more sensitive parts before they hit a foreign object.
But over time, JWST will inevitably be hit by more solid objects in space, degrading its performance.
It is unavoidable and NASA hopes that the telescope’s performance is high enough that with such problems, it will be able to continue its missions in the years to come.
NASA noted that since JWST was launched in December 2021, the telescope had been hit by four small micrometeorids and this strike was bigger than experts expected.
The team of scientists will use this flight data to update performance analyzes over time as well as develop operational approaches to ensure maximization of JWST imaging performance.
That’s the latest report from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope that was hit by a space rock. (Suara.com/ Lintang Siltya Utami).
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