NASA: James Webb's space telescope hit by a micro-meteorite

The U.S. space agency announced that a micro-meteorite caused minor damage to the space telescope, which was developed with an investment of about $ 10 billion.

NASA emphasizes: "It is still functioning at the rising level"

Yinon Ben Shoshan

09/06/2022

Thursday, 09 June 2022, 10:49 Updated: 11:18

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

• Share on general

• Comments

  Comments

James Webb (Photo: AP)

The US space agency NASA announced last night (Wednesday) that James Webb, the most expensive and advanced telescope ever built by mankind, was hit by a micro-meteorite and caused damage to one of its 18 mirrors. But NASA emphasizes: "The telescope still functions at a level that exceeds all mission requirements."

Since its launch, James Webb has been hit by at least four different micro-meteorites, according to a NASA blog post, but in fact they were all extremely small so the impact was insignificant. However, the micro-meteorite that caused the damage was larger What was expected of the mission team.The injury occurred between May 23 and 25.

More on Walla!

Knowledge is power: Get to know the loan at a fixed interest rate

In collaboration with ICC

Launch of the James Webb Telescope (Photo: Reuters)

Still, this is not a complete surprise.

"We always knew James Webb would have to deal with the space environment, which includes powerful ultraviolet light and charged particles from the sun, cosmic rays and other galaxies and the occasional micro-meteorite impact on our solar system," said Paul Geithner, NASA's deputy chief project officer. In

addition, the space agency is setting up an engineering team that will find ways to prevent (or reduce) possible effects of future damage by other micro-meteorites of the same size. And because the James Webb Space Telescope is so sensitive, it will help NASA understand how micro- - There are more meteorites in the vicinity of deep space.

Walla!

Log in (Walla)

The design and development of James Webb lasted more than 25 years, with an investment of about $ 10 billion.

The entire body of the James Webb space telescope, the successor to the old "mourning", will enrich our world with observations of some of the most distant bodies in the universe, which cannot be observed with the existing means in space available to mankind.

Also, Webb will look further and further back in time to the formation of the universe and will also try to answer the question of the existence of extraterrestrial life.

• technology

Tags

• James Webb

• telescope