![]() ![]() An international team of astronomers has reported the discovery of diverse ices in the darkest, coldest regions of a molecular cloud measured to date by studying this region. The light from numerous background stars, seen as orange dots behind the cloud, can be used to detect ices in the cloud, which absorb the starlight passing through them. ![]() The cold, wispy cloud material (blue, centre) is illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young, outflowing protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, upper left). This image by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope's Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) features the central region of the Chameleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light years away. “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.” “We - completely unexpectedly - detected a small asteroid in publicly available MIRI calibration observations,” said Thomas Müller, astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, in a statement. The detection of the asteroid was made by chance when the Webb research team focused the telescope’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument, or MIRI, on the main belt asteroid (10920) 1998 BC1, originally discovered in 1998, to take calibration images. Such small, dark cosmic objects are incredibly hard to observe, but astronomers can use Webb to look for more asteroids of this size in the future.įurther observations will help astronomers learn more about the asteroid in the future and confirm that it is truly a newly discovered object. The asteroid may be one of the smallest ever found in the main belt. The main asteroid belt is in close alignment with the ecliptic plane, or the same plane that includes Earth’s orbit around the sun. The doughnut-shaped belt is home to most of the asteroids in the solar system. The James Webb Space Telescope has observed its smallest cosmic object to date - a previously unknown asteroid about the size of the Colosseum in Rome.Ī team of European astronomers made the detection of the space rock, which is between 328 and 656 feet (100 to 200 meters) long, and located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |