A set of 632 main-belt asteroids (178 previously known and 454 unknown objects) has been identified in the archival images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Citizen scientists from around the world contributed to the identification of this asteroid bounty. Professional astronomers combined the volunteers’ efforts with machine learning algorithm to identify the asteroids.
Over 4 billion years ago, the eight major planets around our Sun formed by sweeping up debris from a vast disk of dust and gas surrounding the Sun.
This is common to the planet birthing process, and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was the first to optically see similar disks surrounding newborn stars, providing a peek into the Solar System’s formative years.
Now, 4 billon years later, the planet construction yard is still cluttered with leftover debris.
Most of this ancient space rubble — asteroids — can be found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt.
“We are getting deeper into seeing the smaller population of main belt asteroids,” said Dr. Pablo García Martín, an astronomer at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
“We were surprised with seeing such a large number of candidate objects.”
“There was some hint of this population existing, but now we are confirming it with a random asteroid population sample obtained using the whole Hubble archive.”
“This is important for providing insights into the evolutionary models of our Solar System.”
Because of Hubble’s fast orbit around the Earth, it can capture wandering asteroids through their telltale trails in the Hubble exposures.
As viewed from an Earth-based telescope, an asteroid leaves a streak across the picture.
Asteroids ‘photobomb’ Hubble exposures by appearing as unmistakable, curved trails in the photographs.
As Hubble moves around the Earth, it changes its point of view while observing an asteroid, which also moves along its own orbit.
By knowing the position of…
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