NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been damaged after the space telescope was hit earlier this year by at least 19 small space rocks, also called micrometeoroids. One of the rocks has reportedly left noticeable damage on one of the telescopes’ 18 gold-plated mirrors. The impact reportedly took place between May 23 and May 25 this year, and caused “uncorrectable” damage in a small part of the space telescope. NASA researchers have now shared the first images that show the damage caused by the collision in a research paper posted on arXiv.org.
Micrometeoroids are a common problem for all kinds of spacecraft in Earth’s orbit. As per a report by Live Science, the US Space Survellance Network keeps track of over 23,000 pieces of debris that are large enough to cause damage to spacecraft. The report also mentions that these are just the bigger pieces, and the millions of smaller orbital debris pieces are almost impossible to monitor.
NASA does prepare for these unavoidable impacts. In fact, when the James Webb Space Telescope was being built, engineers would reportedly intentionally hit it with micrometeoroid-sized objects to see if the contact would affect the working and performance of the telescope.
This is exactly why most of the debris pieces didn’t really affect much of the James Webb Space Telescope’s functioning. Well, all except one of the micrometeoroids ,which was larger than expected in size. Among the six pieces of debris that have left noticeable “deformities” on the space telescope, one remains the largest. Researchers are currently studying the impact site, trying to determine the amount of damage it has caused.
