‘Grain of sand’ traveling at warp speed slams satellite, leaves hole, scientists say

Science fiction movies that show microscopic meteoroids dramatically puncturing spacecraft aren’t far from the truth.

The European Space Agency’s star mapping Gaia spacecraft was overtaken by “space dust” in April and one micrometeoroid left a hole, scientists say.

“A tiny particle smaller than a grain of sand ... struck Gaia at a very high speed and at just the wrong angle, damaging the spacecraft’s protective cover. ... The impact created a little gap,” ESA officials reported in a July 17 news release.

“Hyper-velocity space dust and the strongest solar storm in 20 years have threatened Gaia’s ability to carry out the precise measurements for which it is famous.”

Micrometeoroids are grain-sized and travel at “hypervelocity speeds” averaging 22,000 mph, NASA says.

“This ‘space junk’ collides with spacecraft and satellites potentially causing serious damage or catastrophic failure,” NASA scientists say.

The impact suffered by Gaia was followed weeks later by a mysterious electronics failure. It’s still unclear what caused it, officials said.

“As a result, the spacecraft began generating a huge number of false detections that overwhelmed our systems,” Gaia operations engineer Edmund Serpell said in the release.

“We cannot physically repair the spacecraft from 1.5 million (kilometers) away. However, by carefully modifying the threshold at which Gaia’s software identifies a faint point of light as a star, we have been able to dramatically reduce the number of false detections.”

The grain that struck Gaia was similar to millions “vaporized” every day when they plummet through Earth’s atmosphere, creating intense heat and friction, NASA says.

Spacecraft are built to withstand the impacts, but they do have weak spots and the grain that hit Gaia found one of those, experts say.

“Space is a dangerous place,” scientists said.

This story was originally published July 17, 2024 at 8:46 AM with the headline "‘Grain of sand’ traveling at warp speed slams satellite, leaves hole, scientists say."