Meghan is a senior writer at Space.com and has more than five years' experience as a science journalist based in New York City. She joined Space.com in July 2018, with previous writing published in outlets including Newsweek and Audubon. Meghan earned an MA in science journalism from New York University and a BA in classics from Georgetown University, and in her free time she enjoys reading and visiting museums. Follow her on Twitter at @meghanbartels.
left more damage than the models predicted, mission personnel began studying ways to reduce impacts.
Webb is unusually vulnerable because its mirror is vast and directly exposed to space — unlike, for example, the's mirror, which is smaller and shielded by protective casing. But for JWST, shrinking or shielding the mirror would have reduced the telescope's power. A team of experts gathered to analyze the May impact determined that the event was an unlucky break because a micrometeoroid with unusually high energy happened to strike a more vulnerable area of the mirror. Still, the scientists determined that it was worth tweaking JWST's observations to further reduce the odds of another such strike on the vast light-collecting surface.
JWST is orbiting what scientists call a Lagrange point, where gravitational tugs even out to create"parking spots" that spacecraft can exploit to reduce the fuel and maneuvers it needs to stay in position. JWST's particular Lagrange point is located nearly 1 million miles away from
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