Does Spike Diffraction Matter?

submitted by raven9 from self.space

https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G70BNNT148AZBBKD3G9N9F3S.png

Spike diffraction seems prominant in the JWST images. Surely that must interfere with the image resolution. They say it is caused by the struts that support the secondary mirror. I wonder, with all the technological advances since reflecting telescopes were invented, why did they not find a way to eliminate that diffraction?

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In theory they could completely eliminate the spikes by having the camera roll independently of the supports while it is accumulating image data, but idk if the telescope has the ability to do that