Webb detects smallest main belt asteroid by chance: NASA

tech.hindustantimes.com:

An asteroid roughly the size of Rome's Colosseum, between 300 and 650 feet, or 100 and 200 metres, in length, has been detected by scientists using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, according to a new research.

The object, detected by the international team of European astronomers, is likely the smallest observed to date by Webb, the research said.

It may also be an example of an object measuring under 0.6 miles, or 1 kilometer, one of the smallest in length within the main asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter, the research said.

The team's project used data from the calibration of the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), in which the team serendipitously detected an interloping asteroid, the research published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics said.

Calibration is the act of checking or adjusting the accuracy of a measuring instrument by comparison with a standard.

More observations are needed to better characterize this object's nature and properties, the research said.

"We - completely unexpectedly - detected a small asteroid in publicly available MIRI calibration observations," explained Thomas Mueller, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

"The measurements are some of the first MIRI measurements targeting the ecliptic plane and our work suggests that many new objects will be detected with this instrument," said Mueller.

According to the research, these Webb observations, were not designed to hunt for new asteroids - in fact, they were calibration images of the main belt asteroid (10920) 1998 BC1, which astronomers discovered in 1998.

The Webb observations were conducted to test the performance of some of MIRI's filters, but the calibration team