[글로벌] The 12 trillion won James Webb Space Telescope collided with a micrometeorite.

It is known that the James Webb Space Telescope, which was not released for large-scale observation, recently collided with a small micrometeorite.

A micrometeorite is a rocky mass smaller than a grain of sand about 1 mm in size, orbiting the solar system. A collision with small meteors scattered throughout the solar system was expected, but this collision was analyzed to be above the expected range.

On the ninth day, the meteor collided with C3, one of the 18 mirrors that make up the primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope from the 23rd to 25th of last month, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and foreign media. . The James Webb Space Telescope has encountered a micrometeorite five times since its launch last December, and this telescope was the largest.

The task force announced that the impact of the collision was mitigated by adjusting the C3’s mirrors to compensate for the dent from the crash.

The James Webb Space Telescope is located at the second Lagrange point (L2), where the gravitational pull of the Earth and Sun is balanced. Because L2 is about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, it cannot be captured by a space shuttle like the Hubble Space Telescope. L2 is also an environment in which dust-sized particles travel at very high speeds. The James Webb Space Telescope was built with this in mind, but it surprised scientists when it encountered a larger-than-expected microtoroid.

NASA said it is conducting an analysis with a panel of experts to find ways to reduce the impact of micrometeor impacts in the future.

“Even after the successful launch, deployment and alignment of the mirrors, James Webb’s initial performance continues to exceed expectations and is designed to perform flawlessly,” NASA said. He added that the launch is still going smoothly.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most powerful space telescope in human history. In addition to NASA, countries around the world, including the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), have collaborated on this next-generation telescope, whose main task is to observe the events that took place in the early days. . Universe.

We are excited to see the surviving planets that the James Webb Space Telescope will find in the future.

Source = Bamboo Media
Rating = Reporter Hyunggi Kim khk@techm.kr