The James Webb Space Telescope takes amazing pictures by accident
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spotted a small rock in the solar system, by chance, during its calibration.
Thomas Müller of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and several collaborating researchers examined a series of James Webb Space Telescope snapshots of a well-known celestial body about 15 kilometers wide that resides in The asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. These images were taken to measure the response capacity of one of the telescope's infrared cameras.
While the researchers were analyzing the data, their eyes fell on a celestial body. It looked like a very small asteroid, with a width ranging from 100 meters to 230 meters, according to their estimates. In the event that this discovery is confirmed by future observations, this object will be one of the smallest celestial bodies ever seen in the space of this universe. It is worth noting that the “James Webb Space Telescope” has been able to monitor this celestial body from a distance of more than 130 kilometers.
The researchers pointed out that the results herald more discoveries in the near future, as it is almost impossible for the telescope to take pictures along the level of the solar system, where the asteroid belt resides, without observing more asteroids present there. The solar system may house hundreds of millions of small rocks floating in space that may guide us to understand the history of this ancient system.
Source: websites