Webb telescope keeps on clicking; planets form a line before dawn | The Sky Guy
On June 8, NASA released information that the James Webb Telescope (JWT) was struck by a micrometeoroid damaging one of its mirrors in late May.
Objects in space are constantly at risk of being hit by debris. While the objects have little mass (think dust particles) they are traveling at enormous speeds giving them powerful force according to Newton’s second law where force equals mass times acceleration.
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Luckily the JWT was designed to take these impacts and after reviewing the damage to the mirror segment the Webb team determined the scope was still performing to the highest level the mission requires.
“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. “We designed and built Webb with performance margin – optical, thermal, electrical, mechanical – to ensure it can perform its ambitious science mission even after many years in space.”
In good news the JWT is on schedule to release its first full-color images on July 12. I can’t wait!
Morning sky: All the planetary action continues in the morning sky this month. All eight planets form a line with the five naked eye planets appearing in the order of their orbits around the Sun in the first couple of days in July. Mercury soon will enter the Sun’s glare then so catch the view while you can.
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are all visible before sunrise all month long. Watch the Moon catch up and pass each planet during the month, see below for dates.
Evening sky: Watch the Moon pass a couple of bright stars, see below for dates.
1st: Moon near Beehive star cluster at dusk.
2nd: Tallahassee Astronomical Society’s free planetarium show, “July Skies over Tallahassee,” at the Downtown Digital Dome Theatre and Planetarium at the Challenger Learning Center (not recommended for children under 5). Doors close at 10 a.m. sharp. Masks highly recommended.
2nd: Moon near bright star Regulus in Leo in the early evening.
6th: First quarter Moon.
7th: Moon near bright star Spica in Virgo in the evening.
10th – 11th: Moon near bright star Antares in Scorpius from the evening into the morning.
13th: Full Moon.
15th – 16th: Moon near Saturn from late evening into the morning.
19th: Moon near Jupiter in the early morning.
20th: Last quarter Moon.
21st: Moon near Mars in the morning.
23rd: Moon near Pleiades star cluster.
26th: Moon near Venus before sunrise.
28th: New Moon.
30th: Moon near Regulus in Leo at sunset.
Ken Kopczynski is president of the Tallahassee Astronomical Society, a local group of amateur astronomers.
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