On May 23 and 25, the space telescope suffered the impact of a micrometeorite in one of the primary segments that make up its large mirror, micrometeorites are particles the size of dust or very small grains but that fly at extreme speeds.
When they fall to earth we see them disintegrate like pretty shooting stars, but in space they can be terrifying, as their impact can carry as much energy as a rifle shot and can pierce structures.
After the incident the technical team verified that the telescope was still operating at a level that exceeds all mission requirements even though the impact will leave a marginally detectable effect on the data, it is a bad thing but it can be assumed, no believe that the engineers who designed the james webb did not think about micrometeorites of course they did in calculations and estimated that the web could withstand approximately one impact per month.
In these ways, the impact holes would accumulate over time, but the technicians concluded that in 10 years they would only cover 0.1 percent of the primary mirror, that means that in an area of 25 square meters after 10 years the damaged surface would be about 250 square centimeters, that is less than half of a letter-size sheet.
In addition, the mission of the james webb will only be between 5 to 10 years, its useful life will be much shorter than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, so the engineers decided that it was worth taking the risk and assuming the damage that was produced. , the problem is that the impact of May was one of the relatively important ones and although it was within the expected that it would happen in a few impacts, at this level it happened much earlier than expected, this is probabilistic, it can happen at the beginning or never happen.
The telescope is a million and a half kilometers from the earth and it is not feasible to send a repair team, so the engineers are studying first if their calculations on impact are correct and second how to minimize future damage and that is that the James Webb is going to face two key moments, the first will be in May 2023 and the second in May 2024, that will be when he crosses the trail of debris left behind by Halley's comet, a comet that approaches the earth every 75 years, in principle that wake would have to be scattered dust motes, but the calculations and estimates may be wrong and the Webb will have to face much larger asteroids.
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