Astronomers have uncovered an unexpectedly large population of the smallest asteroids ever observed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, using archival images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This discovery could significantly improve efforts to track these tiny but potentially dangerous space rocks, which may one day approach Earth, according to Live Science.
The recently discovered asteroids range in size from that of a bus to several stadiums, making them small compared to the giant asteroid responsible for the dinosaur extinction event. Despite their size, these asteroids are still capable of causing considerable damage. Just a decade ago, an asteroid about the size of a small building unexpectedly exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, releasing 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
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These "decametre" asteroids, measuring tens of meters across, collide with Earth 10,000 times more frequently than larger asteroids. However, their small size makes them difficult to detect in advance with standard surveys.
A team of astronomers, including Julien de Wit, an associate professor of planetary science at MIT, has been developing a computationally intensive method to identify these small asteroids in images of distant stars taken by telescopes. By applying this technique to thousands of JWST images of the TRAPPIST-1 system—one of the best-studied planetary systems beyond our own—the researchers discovered eight known and 138 new decametre asteroids in the main asteroid belt, located about 40 light-years away.
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