O James Webb Space Telescopethe result of a partnership between NASA, the US space agency, ESA (the European counterpart) and the Canadian CSA, amazed half the world with the release of its first images, which revealed images of clusters of galaxies, which are at a distance of more than 4.6 billion light years.
Using a structure composed of 18 main hexagonal mirrors, which reflect light to a secondary mirror, which in turn forwards all the light (in particular infrared) to a set of sensors, this can be remotely programmed to adjust the parameters. detection, eliminating possible damage caused by collisions of small celestial bodies.
However, according to information revealed by NASA itself, the space telescope was hit by a micrometeorite between the 22nd and 24th of May, of a larger size than expected, and caused irreversible damage to the C3 mirror, placed in the lower right corner, as you can confirm in the white dot reproduced in the image released by NASA itself.
Bearing in mind that this space telescope, which cost more than 10 billion euros, is located at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, there is no way, in the short or medium term, for the damaged mirror to be repairable (or replaceable). ). According to NASA, so far 19 impacts have been detected, but this was the only one that caused significant damage.
Equipped with enough fuel for a lifespan of 20 years, those responsible for the space telescope, after this unfortunate occurrence, are beginning to doubt that it can last that long. It is true that the micrometeorite that collided with the space telescope may have been an exception, but the potential risk is there, and given the damage caused by it, it is not known what could happen if there is a new collision with another micrometeorite of higher dimensions.
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