In May 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) encountered a problem. The giant observatory, perched 1 million miles from Earth, has a honeycomb-like configuration of mirror panels to see the stars. But one of them was struck by a bigger-than-expected micrometeoroid. The agency reported in a blog post that it had “a marginally detectable effect in the data.” But a larger chunk of rock flying at unfathomable speeds could have delivered a bigger blow.
