5 ms·
What's lacking in the article is an expiration date of the sort. When will the performance of the telescope actually degrade noticeably assuming the micrometeor
by sharikous 4y ago
What's lacking in the article is an expiration date of the sort. When will the performance of the telescope actually degrade noticeably assuming the micrometeor collisions follow the expected distribution?
As I understood there was a single impact that was bigger than expected. How does the functional time window change if the expected probability of larger impacts is tuned up a bit?
- belter 4y agoMore details here.... "Characterization of JWST science performance from commissioning": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32136969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32136969 See comment: under "Micrometeoroids"
- koheripbal 4y agoThe issue here is that not only was the large impact a statistical outlier, but so were the other dozen smaller impacts. So unless the team can optimize the orientation of the craft (which they are attempting) to reduce risk (and reduce observation targets), the telescope will likely not meet its projected lifetime. We're all hoping for the best, but the models of micrometeor density at L2 were likely optimistically inaccurate.