How many asteroids do you think have wandered within range of astronomical telescopes undetected? Even observers of Hubble, one of the most important in humanity, some let slip. Recently, a group of scientists identified 1701 new celestial bodies in device files.
The information comes from the compilation of files over the last 20 years, where more than 1000 of this number of objects are unknown. The researchers discovered them through a database of over 37,000 telescope composite images taken between April 2002 and March 2021.
The group responsible for the study, called “Hubble asteroid hunter“, was created to identify bodies in the archives and has the participation of tens of thousands of volunteers. To get an impressive number of not yet “known” asteroids, it was enough to analyze about 1% of the images.
The newly discovered objects are faintly luminous and likely smaller than those already detected by ground-based telescopes. And although they are not the most famous, they can bring up-to-date information about the formation and beginning System Sunny.
“One astronomer’s trash can become another astronomer’s treasure,” he said. sandor Crook, member of the Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics. Max Planck in Germany. “Due to their own orbit and Hubble’s motion, the bands in the images appear to be curved, making it difficult to classify asteroid contrails. It’s hard to tell a computer how to automatically detect them.”
To make it possible to detect these fainter and harder-to-find asteroids, members of the research team have trained an automated algorithm that looks for traces of objects in the Hubble archives. Although their identification is exciting, it requires further observation.
Most of them come from Belt Mainpopularly known as Belt in asteroidsa circular region formed by many irregularly shaped bodies that lies between orbits Mars and Jupiter.
The next step in the analysis will be to determine the distance to the new asteroids and their paths through space, which could provide interesting information about their origins and, who knows, lead to the discovery of more interstellar objects.
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Source: Technological innovation.
Source: Mundo Conectado
I’m Maurice Knox, a professional news writer with a focus on science. I work for Div Bracket. My articles cover everything from the latest scientific breakthroughs to advances in technology and medicine. I have a passion for understanding the world around us and helping people stay informed about important developments in science and beyond.
