Next-Gen 'Scope Update: One Of The 18 Golden Hexagonal Mirrors Took A Micro-meteorite Hit Last Month...

Do see at right -- this minor hiccup won't affect science operations -- as she's still all set for July 4 weekend. . . .

Here's the latest, from The Verge online mag:

. . .NASA’s new powerful space observatory [redacted] got pelted by a larger than expected micrometeoroid at the end of May, causing some detectable damage to one of the spacecraft’s 18 primary mirror segments. The impact means that the mission team will have to correct for the distortion created by the strike, but NASA says that the telescope is “still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements. . . .”

Just imagine what we may learn, with clarity like this (below).

Sptizer was revolutionary in its day. The first overlaid image, which fades away into the second, is Spitzer looking at the same large Large Magellanic Cloud region. . . which is then replaced by the clarity of the scope at L2 now.

Science ops are still about three weeks away. . . but this fine scope deserves a more appropriate name: perhaps Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin(?). . . I've offered others in prior posts. C'mon, NASA -- get your act together:

Hypatia: The first astronomical female was Urania, the Greek muse of astronomy. . . .

Émilie du Châtelet

Mary Somerville

Caroline Herschel

Henrietta Leavitt

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Sara Seager

Andrea Ghez, or about 700 others -- "the hidden figures". . . of astronomy. C'mon.

Out.

नमस्ते