The new analysis—conducted by a group of NASA experts, the telescope’s mirror manufacturer, and the Space Telescope Science Institute—indicates the latter.
“Micrometeoroids that strike the mirror head on (moving opposite the direction the telescope is moving) have twice the relative velocity and four times the kinetic energy, so avoiding this direction when feasible will help extend the exquisite optical performance for decades,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA Goddard, in an agency release