NASA: James Webb Space Telescope hit by asteroid! Will it survive?

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched into space by NASA on December 25, 2021 and it slowly moved towards its target location of Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point in January. But less than six months into its space exploration mission, it has come across some serious trouble. The Webb space telescope suffered multiple impacts by an asteroid or rather, micro-asteroids or micrometeoroids on Wednesday, June 8. While these minor hits are usually not a big concern, according to the space agency, this impact was larger than what was predicted by NASA’s models. It is also the first serious hit taken by the space telescope. A concern is that with many sensitive instruments and fragile mirrors onboard the space telescope, is the damage going to affect its performance? Read on to find out. Also read: NASA to launch 3 rockets from private Australian space port

NASA reported in its blog post that the space observatory has endured micrometeoroid impacts. It also explained that “micrometeoroid strikes are an unavoidable aspect of operating any spacecraft, which routinely sustain many impacts over the course of long and productive science missions in space”. While the space agency has reassured that there is no need to worry and the JWST mission will continue as expected, it also did mention that this particular micro-asteroid strike was larger than expected.

Addressing the issue, Paul Geithner, technical deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said, “We always knew that Webb would have to weather the space environment, which includes harsh ultraviolet light and charged particles from the Sun, cosmic rays from exotic sources in the galaxy, and occasional strikes by micrometeoroids within our solar system”. In fact,