Micrometeoroid collision with James Webb Telescope ‘a bit unsettling’
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ANU astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker says the micrometeoroid which hit NASA’s James Webb Telescope was “a bit unsettling” for the machinery.
It comes a month before the telescope is set to release its first images, which will be in colour and of the universe’s baby galaxies.
“They did think that this would happen, we do know there are micrometeoroids, these tiny specks of dust travelling through space,” he told Sky News Australia.
Dr Tucker said the micrometeoroid was “a bit bigger than modelled” and knocked out one of the telescope's honeycomb-shaped mirrors.
“So it slightly knocked out the alignment of one of these segments,” he said.
“Now luckily it didn’t do any surface damage or any major impact.”
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