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<\/p>\nAn asteroid strike that hit Nasa's impossibly expensive \u00a38 billion James Webb Space Telescope may have caused 'more damage than previously thought, the space agency has revealed.<\/p>\n
Back in May, the telescope was hit by an asteroid strike that caused six micrometeorites to strike the telescope's primary mirror.<\/p>\n
Of these strikes, scientists think that at least five of them caused negligible damage to the telescope's body, with on in particular on May 22 causing the most trouble.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Nasa's amazing new \u00a38 billion James Webb telescope has 'less memory than an iPhone 13'<\/b><\/p>\n
Nasa's report states: "The single micrometeorite impact that occurred between 22 \u2014 24 May 2022 UT exceeded prelaunch expectations of damage for a single micrometeoroid triggering further investigation and modelling by the JWST Project.<\/p>\n
"The micrometeoroid which hit segment C3 in the period 22\u201424 May 2022 UT caused significant uncorrectable change in the overall figure of that segment.<\/p>\n
"However, the effect was small at the full telescope level because only a small portion of the telescope area was affected."<\/p>\n
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Fortunately, the damage has not affected the telescope's ability to deliver awe-inspiring photos back to earth.<\/p>\n
But what's even more impressive is the kit it uses to do so.<\/p>\n
According to IEEE Spectrum, the pricey telescope only has 68GB of storage space, which is about the same memory size as Apple's cheapest iPhone (64GB). <\/p>\n
This is roughly enough storage space to hang onto one day's worth of photographs, or in the case of an iPhone, a couple of apps and video files.<\/p>\n
Nasa reportedly chose the small storage drive because of how difficult it is to take photographs in space.<\/p>\n
The telescope is situated around a million miles away from Earth where it has to contend with deadly space radiation and very slow Internet speeds.<\/p>\n
What's more, Nasa expects this storage space to shrink even further after 10 years due to wear and tear.<\/p>\n
By comparison, a top-notch iPhone 13 Pro comes with 1TB of storage, or about 15 times the size of the telescope's hard drive.<\/p>\n
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