These asteroids are as small as 10 meters in diameter, making them the smallest asteroids ever observed in the major asteroid belt.
Artist Webb's illustration reveals clusters of main-belt decameter asteroids in infrared light. Image credit: Ella Mall/Julian de Wit.
The discovery of asteroids is essential to planetary defense efforts aimed at preventing collisions with Earth, such as the frequent megaton explosions caused by decameter impactors.
Large asteroids (=>100 km) remain in the main belt since their formation, while smaller asteroids are typically transported into the near-Earth object (NEO) population.
“We were able to detect NEOs very close to Earth, up to 10 meters in size,” said MIT researcher Dr. Artem Brudanov.
“We now have a way to discover these small asteroids when they are far away, so we can do more precise trajectory tracking, which is important for planetary defense.”
For this study, astronomers used data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to search for small asteroids.
Coincidentally, asteroids orbiting the main asteroid belt are much brighter in infrared wavelengths than in visible wavelengths, making them much easier to detect with Webb's infrared capabilities.
Researchers were able to discover eight known asteroids in the main asteroid belt.
Further investigation subsequently discovered 138 new asteroids around the belt, all within a few tens of meters in diameter, making them the smallest main-belt asteroids ever detected. .
They think several asteroids may be on their way to becoming NEOs, and one of them is probably the Trojans, or Jupiter-tracking asteroids.
“We thought we would only detect a few new objects, but we detected far more objects than we expected, especially small ones,” said Professor Julian de Witt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“This is an indication that we are exploring a new population regime, where many more small objects are formed by a chain of collisions that very efficiently disintegrates asteroids smaller than about 100 meters. It will be done.”
“This is a completely new and unexplored territory that we are entering, thanks to modern technology,” said Dr. Brudanov.
“This is a great example of what we can do as a field when we look at data from a different perspective. Sometimes the benefits can be huge, and this is one of them.”
“The statistics of these very small main-belt asteroids are very important for modeling asteroid populations,” said Dr. Miroslav Broz, a researcher at Charles University in Prague.
In fact, these are debris ejected during the impact of larger, kilometer-sized asteroids, which are observable and often exhibit similar orbits around the sun, placing them in a “family” of asteroids. Can be grouped. ”
“We never expected that we could use state-of-the-art exoplanet observations to achieve such impactful solar system bonus science,” said Dr. Michael Guillon, a researcher at the University of Liège.
ESA researcher Dr Marco Micheli said: “Thanks to the web, we can now discover these small asteroids even when they are located far from Earth, allowing us to make more accurate orbit determinations. “This is extremely important for planetary defense.” Near Earth Object Coordination Center.
of the team paper Published in today's magazine nature.
_____
AY Brudanov others. JWST sighting of a 10-meter main belt asteroid and views on the meteorite source. naturepublished online on December 9, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08480-z
Source: www.sci.news
