Nasa says the incident is not expected to limit the mission's overall performance.
A tiny rock fragment has hit the new James Webb Space Telescope's main mirror.
Analysis indicates the mirror segment known as C3 - one of the 18 beryllium-gold tiles that make up Webb's 6.5m-wide primary reflector - was struck. The contact left a "dimple" in the segment, NasaThe speed at which things move through space means even the smallest particles can impart a lot of energy when colliding with another object. Webb has now been hit five times with this latest event being the most significant.
"We always knew that Webb would have to weather the space environment, which includes harsh ultraviolet light and charged particles from the Sun, cosmic rays from exotic sources in the galaxy, and occasional strikes by micrometeoroids within our Solar System," said Paul Geithner, technical deputy project manager at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
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