James Webb Telescope Discovers Over 100 New Asteroids Between Jupiter and Mars

 Astronomers studying archived images from the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a surprisingly large population of the smallest asteroids ever observed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Astronomers analyzing archival data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have uncovered an unexpectedly large population of the smallest asteroids ever observed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This discovery could improve our ability to track these tiny but potentially dangerous space rocks that may approach Earth.

The newly identified asteroids range in size from as small as a bus to several stadiums. Though much smaller than the massive asteroid that caused the extinction of most dinosaurs, these space rocks still hold immense destructive potential. For example, a decade ago, an asteroid only a few tens of meters wide exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, releasing energy 30 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during WWII.

These "decameter" asteroids, measuring just tens of meters, are 10,000 times more likely to collide with Earth than their larger counterparts. However, their small size makes them difficult to detect in time, posing a challenge for current asteroid monitoring systems.

In recent years, a team of astronomers, including Julien de Wit, an associate professor of planetary science at MIT, has been refining a computationally intensive method to identify passing asteroids in telescope images of distant stars.

Using this method on thousands of James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the TRAPPIST-1 system, located about 40 light-years away and the most studied planetary system beyond our own, the researchers identified eight previously known asteroids and 138 new decameter asteroids in the main asteroid belt. Among these, six appear to have been gravitationally influenced by nearby planets, altering their paths to bring them closer to Earth. An early, unedited version of the study was published on December 9 in Nature.

"We expected to find only a few new objects, but the sheer number, especially of smaller asteroids, was surprising," de Wit stated. "This suggests we are uncovering a new population of objects."