It hasn’t but been a 12 months since Webb was launched however since then, its golden main mirror has been hit by 14 measurable micrometeoroids, averaging about one to 2 per thirty days. The optical errors ensuing from all however one impression have been inside what Webb groups had anticipated and “budgeted” for.

One of the impacts was greater than expectations and prelaunch fashions however even after that, the optical efficiency of the telescope is twice pretty much as good as necessities, in keeping with Mike Menzel, NASA’s Webb lead mission programs engineer.

Helping Webb keep away from micrometeoroids

After the high-energy impression noticed in May, NASA convened a working group of skilled’s from the company’s Webb group, the producer of the telescope’s mirror, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the NASA Meteoroid Environment workplace. The group analysed this impression and concluded that it was a uncommon statistical occasion with the micrometeoroid having a excessive impression vitality and hitting a very delicate location on the mirror.

Nonetheless, the group resolve that future observations must be deliberate to face away from what is named the ‘micrometeoroid avoidance zone’ to minimise future impacts of that magnitude.

“Micrometeoroids that strike the mirror head-on (moving opposite the direction the telescope is moving) have twice the relative velocity and four times the kinetic energy, so avoiding this direction when feasible will help extend the exquisite optical performance for decades,” mentioned Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope factor supervisor, in a NASA assertion.

But in keeping with Feinberg, this doesn’t imply that Webb can be unable to watch some elements of the sky. Instead, observations of sure objects can be made extra safely at a unique time of the 12 months when Webb is at a unique location in its orbit. Some observations will nonetheless be achieved within the micrometeoroid zone if they’re time crucial.

This new micrometeoroid avoidance zone can be applied throughout Webb’s second 12 months of science, which is dubbed “Cycle 2.”