NASA's James Webb Space Telescope suffered horrific damage from micrometeoroid crash

A new picture captured by James Webb Space Telescope has left NASA scientists fearful of its fate as the damage made by micrometeoroid strike is pretty bad.

NASA James Webb Space Telescope was damaged badly by a micrometeoroid crashing into it. (AFP)

The pictures captured by NASA James Webb Space Telescope will go a long way in enriching human knowledge about the birth of the universe as well as unravel many mysteries. The James Webb Telescope may well save humanity from extinction with its findings. However, the hopes of the world in general and NASA in particular have suffered a setback as a recent picture captured by the space telescope shows big damage caused to it by a micrometeoroid strike. The picture has left scientists shocked as the damage is extensive, although initially it was thought to have caused minimal damage.

The entire problem started on May 22 and 24 when a micrometeoroid struck the Webb Space Telescope, impacting one of the observatory's critical 18 hexagonal golden mirrors. NASA had shared information about the micrometeoroid strike in June and noted that the debris was more sizable than pre-launch modelling had accounted for. As for now, the scientists on the mission have shared an image that showed the severity of the blow to the James Webb Telescope in a report released July 12 describing what scientists on the mission learned about using the observatory during its first six months in space.

Scientists are now assuming that the long-term effect of the micrometeoroid strike on the Webb telescope will be pretty big. Exactly how big the problem is, has not been revealed, but it may impact some of the critical missions of the James Webb Space Telescope.

What are Micrometeoroids?

Talking about Micrometeoroids as NASA says they are the particles smaller than a grain of sand. Every day, Earth's atmosphere is struck by millions of meteoroids and micrometeoroids. Most never reach Earth's surface because they are vaporized by the intense heat generated by the friction of passing through the atmosphere.