Scientists Find The Smallest Asteroid In The Main Belt Thanks To NASA's Webb Telescope

Illustration of the main asteroid belt. (Doc. NASA)

JAKARTA A group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) discovered a small asteroid population in space. This asteroid was discovered thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope.

Quoting from NASA's explanation, the owner of the James Webb Telescope, the asteroid was initially caught in a 'film' while crossing the telescope. Researchers at MIT finally developed a Webb image analysis method to find out which object traversed the telescope.

From the methods developed, the researchers managed to find a small collection of asteroids, much smaller than the asteroids once detected by astronomers orbiting the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

These findings are considered interesting for learning materials. Generally, large asteroids have remained in the main belt since the formation, while smaller asteroids will move to the population of near-Earth Objects (NEO).

However, this did not happen to the asteroid collections found by the researchers. There are 138 asteroids of various sizes in the main belt, ranging from the size of the bus to the size of the stadium. The average size is more than 10 meters.

According to Astrophysicist Tom Greene, one of the researchers, said that he and his partner were still trying to understand these small objects. So far, they have predicted how this small asteroid could form.

"Asteroids this size are likely formed from collisions between larger asteroids in the main belt and are likely to move closer to Earth and the Sun," said Tom.

Researchers are still observing this asteroid population to find out the evolutionary history of main belt asteroids of smaller size. If researchers succeed in understanding the asteroid background, they will gain new knowledge of planetary defense.