NASA says debris will collide with the James Webb Space Telescope

NASA says debris will collide with the James Webb Space Telescope,NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is "fully installed," according to science director Thomas Zurbuchen — and it's certainly cause for celebration after decades of hard work and money spent on it, totaling tens of millions of dollars.

 NASA says debris will collide with the James Webb Space Telescope

But the space observatory is not yet out of the woods. When it orbits the sun in a turbulent orbit, it could see a large amount of space debris along the way — and the impact, the team said, could be inevitable.

"There will be little impact from micrometeorites," Michael Thaler, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said during a live broadcast over the weekend. "You know that during the life of the mission there will be damage to the glass of the telescope."

The telescope itself is very fragile, but the team said it could have survived some damage.

"Let's just say there's debris hitting it," NASA engineer Julie Van Campen said during the river. "And then we had problems like reading the mirror."

When it comes to safety, he explained, "not so much." "What you see you get".

However, if a small meteor ruptures through a solar telescope, van Campen said, there will be at least four layers to hold the shield in place.

"It has been in the accounts for the rest of our lives," he added.

However, things could be vast for the JWST team on Earth, as there is no way to directly serve the observatory. It's in contrast to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which the agency's space shuttle visited five times between 1993 and 2009 for repairs and upgrades.

But there is one big difference: Hubble worked in a much more turbulent orbit than in an underground one. JWST will orbit the Sun at L2 (Lagrangian point 2), the farthest point where it can form a straight line with the Earth and the Sun.

"It's a really cool place," explained Thaler along the river, adding that it's "a much cleaner place when it comes to space."

Fortunately, the engineers thought in advance and prepared an additional drive motor. Telescope mirrors, for example, are designed to destroy objects without the pressure of the scientific effort to stop.

NASA has set an ambitious goal of having the JWST last at least ten years, a number strictly limited to the amount of fuel the telescope needs to stay in orbit and launch its equipment.

Now stop pressing. Engineers have made great strides in unlocking the telescope, a laborious process that requires hundreds of steps.

But debris and meteorites will always be a threat - even if additional measures are taken.

Read more: NASA thinks spacecraft will bring down the James Webb Space Telescope — but it doesn't matter [Inverse]

More about the telescope: The James Webb Space Telescope officially begins shooting its golden mirror

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