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Astronomers discover 1031 Uncatalogued Asteroids

Asteroid photobombs Hubble snapshot of Galaxy UGC 12158

Space
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Asteroid photobombs Hubble snapshot of Galaxy UGC 12158
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158 looks like someone took a white marking pen to it. In reality it is a combination of time exposures of a foreground asteroid moving through Hubble’s field of view, photobombing the observation of the galaxy. Several exposures of the galaxy were taken, which is evidenced by the dashed pattern. The asteroid appears as a curved trail as a result of parallax: Hubble is not stationary, but orbiting Earth, and this gives the illusion that the faint asteroid is swimming along a curved trajectory. The uncharted asteroid is inside the asteroid belt in our Solar System, and hence is 10 trillion times closer to Hubble than the background galaxy. Rather than being a nuisance, this type of data is useful to astronomers for doing a census of the asteroid population in our Solar System. [Image description: This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158. The majestic galaxy has a pinwheel shape made up of bright blue stars wound around a yellow-white hub of central stars. The hub has a slash of stars across it, called a bar. The galaxy is tilted face-on to our view from Earth. A slightly S-shaped white line across the top is the Hubble image of an asteroid streaking across Hubble’s view. It looks dashed because the image is a combination of several exposures of the asteroid flying by like a race car.] Credit: NASA, ESA, P. G. Martín (Autonomous University of Madrid), J. DePasquale (STScI). Acknowledgment: A. Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley)

The team used the help of “citizen scientists” worldwide, who contributed to identifying this asteroid bounty. Professional scientists then combined the volunteers’ efforts with machine learning algorithms to identify the asteroids.

The findings are significant as they offer new insights into the formation and evolution of the asteroid belt.

The discovery of many small asteroids favors the idea that they are fragments of larger asteroids that have collided and broken apart. This process has been occurring for billions of years. The large, random sample of asteroids captured by Hubble offers a new approach to finding asteroids in astronomical archives spanning decades.

The project will next explore the streaks of previously unknown asteroids to characterize their orbits and study their properties, such as rotation periods. The findings have been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Size distribution for unknown asteroids in Hubble asteroid hunter survey
This graph is based on Hubble Space Telescope archival data that were used to identify a largely unseen population of very small asteroids. The asteroids were not the intended targets, but instead photobombed background stars and galaxies in Hubble images. The comprehensive treasure hunt required perusing 37 000 Hubble images spanning 19 years. This was accomplished by using ‘citizen science’ volunteers and artificial intelligence algorithms. The payoff was finding 1701 trails of previously undetected asteroids. [Image description: This graph plots the size of asteroids versus their abundance, based on a Hubble Space Telescope archival survey that found 1701 mostly previously undetected asteroids lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The vertical axis lists the number of objects from zero to 70. The horizontal axis lists size, from zero kilometres on the left, to 2 kilometres on the right. The graph slopes up such that the most abundant asteroids detected by Hubble in the survey are 0.5 kilometres across in size.] Credit: NASA, ESA, P. G. Martín (Autonomous University of Madrid), E. Wheatley (STScI)

The discovery is significant as it may be effectively applied to other datasets, say the researchers. The project is also an excellent example of the power of collaboration between scientists and citizen scientists.

The project was developed by researchers and engineers at the European Science and Technology Centre (ESTEC) and the European Space Astronomy Centre’s science data center (ESDC), in collaboration with the Zooniverse platform, the world’s largest and most popular citizen-science platform, and Google.

The discovery is a testament to the power of technology and the potential for groundbreaking discoveries to be made in the future.

Asteroid photobombs Hubble snapshot of Galaxy UGC 12158 (compass image)
This graph plots the size of asteroids versus their abundance, based on a Hubble Space Telescope archival survey that found 1701 mostly previously undetected asteroids lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The vertical axis lists the number of objects from zero to 70. The horizontal axis lists size, from zero kilometres on the left, to 2 kilometres on the right. The graph slopes up such that the most abundant asteroids detected by Hubble in the survey are 0.5 kilometres across in size. Credit: NASA, ESA, P. G. Martín (Autonomous University of Madrid), E. Wheatley (STScI)

The Hubble Asteroid Hunter project is an inspiration for future citizen-science projects and collaborations between scientists and the public.

The discovery of 1031 previously uncatalogued asteroids is a significant achievement and a reminder of the vastness of our universe and the potential for new discoveries.

Journal Reference

  1. Hubble Asteroid Hunter – III. Physical properties of newly found asteroids. Pablo García-Martín, Sandor Kruk, Marcel Popescu, Bruno Merín, Karl R. Stapelfeldt, Robin W. Evans, Benoit Carry and Ross Thomson. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 683 (2024) A122. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346771

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Astronomy & Astrophysics
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