4 ms·
I'm curious about the nature of the damage. article mentions that the affected mirror will be adjusted to minimize the distortion that was introduced, so obviou
by conqueso 4y ago
I'm curious about the nature of the damage. article mentions that the affected mirror will be adjusted to minimize the distortion that was introduced, so obviously not a crack. So, more like a tiny scratch? It's hard for me to conceptualize the impact of hypersonic dust on a mirror
- shrx 4y agoHow do you define "hypersonic" in a vacuum?
- conqueso 4y agoHa! Greater than 0 m/s I suppose - so still technically accurate :-P
- MisterTea 4y ago>1715 m/s same as in air but without the air.
- dredmorbius 4y agoIn space, nobody can year you go transsonic...
- adriand 4y agoMore like a tiny crater or pockmark, although they don’t say exactly how large the meteoroid was or how much damage it caused. Apparently “micrometeoroid” refers to objects with less than a gram of mass, although I assume that this one was likely significantly less heavy than a gram, which is the case for most.
- temp0826 4y agoShould've paid the extra billion for the wiper blade package
- diseasedyak 4y agoThrow a few dozen Rain-X wipers from AutoZone on that baby, she'd be good.
- pilsetnieks 4y agoThe mirrors are gold plated beryllium so it wouldn't be a crack anyway, or at least not a crack like one would think about glass cracking.
- skykooler 4y agoBeryllium is fairly brittle as far as metals go, so a crack wouldn't be out of the question.
- 323 4y agoBut alloys don't behave like the individual elements, so Beryllium being brittle doesn't mean that the alloy also is. Just like Carbon has multiple crystallization forms with wildly different mechanical properties (graphite vs diamond)
- adastra22 4y agoPlating is not an alloy though?
- defterGoose 4y agostr.replace(?,.)