Is NASA’s James Webb telescope damaged? Here’s what reports suggest
- The James Webb Telescope that was responsible for providing the ‘deepest and sharpest infrared image of the early universe’ ever taken, going back 13 billion years might have been damaged due to a space rock
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s newest super space telescope, the James Webb Telescope that was responsible for providing the "deepest and sharpest infrared image of the early universe" ever taken, going back 13 billion years might have been damaged due to a space rock.
Let us understand the reports that suggest the same.
The James Web Telescope
NASA's super space telescope- James Webb Telescope- largest optical telescope in space, its greatly improved infrared resolution and sensitivity allows it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.
The damage
In May this year, it had been reported that the primary mirror had faced damage from a micrometeorite strike. The damage now seems to be graver than imagined.
A paper published on arxiv.org has detailed the Webb’s performance during the commissioning of the telescope revealed that most of the micrometeorite strikes on Webb’s big mirror resulted in negligible damage, but a strike that occurred in mid-May even left the telescope with permanent damage.
The NASA report suggested that five of the six micrometeorite strikes to the mirror which happened between January and June has caused negligible damage.
'The single micrometeorite impact that occurred between 22 — 24 May 2022 UT exceeded prelaunch expectations of damage for a single micrometeoroid triggering further investigation and modelling by the JWST Project,' the report read.
The analysis of the damage was done during the commissioning phase revealed that a mirror segment labelled C3 in mid-May left the telescope with severe damage. The commissioning phase was where ground controllers successfully completed the calibration, alignment, and testing of the telescope's mirrors and instruments.
The sixth one raised the wavefront error of the segment from 56 nanometers to 178 nanometers after correction by adjusting the segment.
Experts have pointed out that the mirrors are exposed to space and therefore difficult to avoid micrometeoroid strikes. Since its mirror is exposed to space, the researchers also said that micrometeoroid strikes are difficult for Webb to avoid.
Consequences of the damage
Since the damages are negligible it wont affect the James Webb Telescope's ability to take infrared images like the ones that were released last week.
A report on the Independent suggested that the five did little damage, causing less than 1 nanometer of wavefront error root mean square (RMS), a technical way to describe how much Webb’s mirror distorts the starlight the mirror collects. Most of the distortion added by those five strikes can be corrected out of the mirror, since the 18 hexagonal segments that make up its face can be individually and finely adjusted.
'The micrometeoroid which hit segment C3 in the period 22—24 May 2022 UT caused significant uncorrectable change in the overall figure of that segment. However, the effect was small at the full telescope level because only a small portion of the telescope area was affected.' the report said.
Micrometeoroid strikes are a problem for Webb because its 21ft (6.5m) diameter mirror is exposed to space, unlike its predecessor Hubble.
But due to its orbit 1 million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth, at a point called the second Lagrange point or L2, experts only expected Webb to encounter potentially hazardous micrometeorites about once per month.
Experts expect Webb's detectors to get gradually damaged by charged particles. They believe that its sun-shield and innovative five-layer insulation will degrade from space weathering.
The $9.7 billion space telescope was launched on Christmas Day in 2021. Earlier this month, NASA revealed the first of many images that it captured of deep space.
Catch all the Business News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
MoreLess
First Published:19 Jul 2022, 07:29 PM IST
- Top Gainers
- Top Losers
- 52 Week High