NASA has assembled an "anomaly review board" and paused some of the James Webb Space Telescope's operations after discovering a glitch.
The agency said in an update yesterday that the extremely expensive and delicate telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) camera and spectrograph appear to have developed an issue when shifting into medium-resolution MRS, one of the instrument's four observing modes.
According to the statement, one of the instrument's mechanisms, described as a grating wheel that allows scientists to select between short, medium, and longer wavelength, seemed to exhibit increasedfriction during setup.
The telescope's sensitive MIRI instrument can't switch gears the way it's supposed to, and NASA isn't sure why.
NASA said thatMIRI's other three observing modes are functioning normally and are available for science observations.
Because our eyes are too long for our feeble peepers, we can't see stars and exoplanets, which is why an MRS glitch is so important.
The details of the MIRI camera are complex. The three camera array of the JWST are arsenic-doped, which allows for greater image quality and also sounds really rad.
The MRS glitch appears to be one of the bigger deal problems that the telescope has encountered thus far.
It's got our attention because of how much time, money, and expertise has been poured into the project, as well as how many stakeholders are banking on its success for years to come.
It's an interesting peek behind the curtain of the agency's problem-solving process as it tries to figure out what's going on with this fancy space camera.
There is an operations update for the mid-Infrared instrument.
More Webby, more problems: Harvard and MIT Scientists don't like the idea that data may not be what it seems.
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