Effect of JWST mirror damage on final images

[GhostLoveScore]

As most of us know, James Webb Space Telescope suffered a damage to one of its mirror segments due to meteoroid impact. How will that damage show in the images?

Some people on certain forum I visit say that there will be some artifacts visible in only one part of the image, but that doesn't make sense to me. What I expect are some very small artifacts (is aberration the right word?) across entire image. My reasoning is, if you mask or remove part of the mirror on Newtonian telescope, you won't be missing one part of the image in the ocular. The image will bi darker and smaller resolution, but it will be the entire image.

Am I wrong about this? Is JWST working differently than regular single mirror/lens telescope? I don't have a very good knowledge of optics.

 

[Ibix]

You are correct - Webb is one telescope forming one image, not eighteen forming a mosaic. A qualitative way to look at it is that Webb is not looking at its own mirror, so the mirror and any damage are out of focus (as far out of focus as it's possible to be) and the effect is a slight blur spread across the whole image rather than a comedy black spot in one corner.

If engineers were still doing the mirror pre-alignment work where they showed eighteen images of one star then only one of them would show aberration. Perhaps that's what your friends are thinking of - but that is not Webb's operating mode.