‘Small’ asteroids the size of buses or stadiums have been pinpointed between Mars and Jupiter for the first time.
Researchers have employed a novel approach to monitor space rocks, which may eventually protect us from collisions with them.
Currently, it is challenging to determine the number of medium-sized asteroids with the potential to hit Earth because our surveillance is mainly effective at detecting the larger ones – only when they are already on a collision course.
A study published in Nature yesterday reveals how scientists successfully tracked ‘decameter’ asteroids in the main belt for the first time, marking the detection of the smallest asteroids in this region.
These mid-sized rocks range from as small as 10 meters in diameter, about the length of a London bus, to several times larger, equating to the size of multiple stadiums.
In comparison to the 10-kilometre giant that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, they are quite small. However, they still pose a risk of reaching the Earth and causing damage.
Previously, the smallest asteroid that could be detected in the field of debris containing millions of asteroids was approximately 1 kilometre wide.
Lead author Artem Burdanov, a research scientist at MIT, said: “We now have a way of spotting these small asteroids when they are much farther away, so we can do more precise orbital tracking, which is key for planetary defence.”
Scientists discovered that they could detect small asteroids while investigating another topic: the quest for distant planets beyond our solar system that might be capable of hosting life.
The telescopes focused on these remote exoplanets frequently encountered interference from cosmic noise, including dust, debris, and asteroids.
“For most astronomers, asteroids are sort of seen as the vermin of the sky, in the sense that they just cross your field of view and affect your data,” co-author Julien de Wit said.
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