Webb Space Telescope “unexpectedly” discovered the smallest asteroid

James Webb Space Telescope accidentally found an asteroid, and NASA says it is probably the smallest asteroid observed by the observatory to date.

International astronomers have discovered an asteroid roughly the size of the Roman Colosseum, 300 to 650 feet long.

The space rock was discovered during analysis of Mid-InfraRed (MIRI) calibration data.

While more observations are needed to better characterize the nature and properties of this object, it may be an example of an object less than 0.6 miles long within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

“We – quite unexpectedly – discovered a small asteroid in MIRI’s publicly available calibration observations,” said Thomas Müller, an astronomer at the Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. Max Planck in Germany. “The measurements are among the first MIRI measurements aimed at the ecliptic plane, and our work suggests that many new objects will be detected with this instrument.”

The observations were published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. They were not designed to hunt for new asteroids and were calibrated. images of main belt asteroid 1998 BC1. The calibration team considered that the observations were not successful for technical reasons, but data on asteroid 10920 was used by the team to create and test a new technique for limiting the object’s orbit and estimating its size.

When analyzing this data, the team’s results show that the object is 100–200 meters in size, occupies a very low inclination orbit, and was in the inner region of the main belt at the time of Webb’s observations.

Small asteroids have been studied in less detail than larger asteroids due to the difficulty of observing such objects. If the discovery of a new asteroid is confirmed, this discovery will have implications for understanding the formation and evolution of the solar system.

To confirm that an object newly discovered asteroidmore position data relative to background stars is needed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.