Micrometeoroid causes ‘uncorrectable’ damage to James Webb Space Telescope
A joint report from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency has revealed that the $10-billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suffered “uncorrectable” damage left by a micrometeoroid strike in late May.
The paper was authored by more than 200 scientists and outlined the performance of the space telescope during its commissioning phase.
It reported that since launch, JWST has been hit by six micrometeoroids: about one strike per month since the telescope first left Earth on Christmas Day 2021. (A micrometeoroid is exactly what it sounds like: a tiny meteoroid.
It weighs less than one gram.) Read more: Cosmic cliffs, dancing galaxies: James Webb Telescope’s 1st photos dazzle This was expected by scientists, who anticipated that tiny fragments of asteroids, roughly the size of a grain of sand, would occasionally collide with JWST’s 18 beryllium-gold segments which fold out to create a 6.5-metre mirror.
United States
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Cases: 46 252 513
Deaths: 750 423
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India
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Cases: 34 321 025
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