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Asteroid photobombs JWST practice shots

The telescope accidentally found an orbiting body that, if confirmed, would be one of the smallest natural objects ever discovered in space.
An artist's impression of a grey, irregularly-shaped asteroid against a dark background.

Astronomers noticed an asteroid (artist’s impression) less than 250 metres long in an image taken during JWST calibrations. Credit: N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), ESO/M. Kornmesser and S. Brunier, N. Risinger

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has spotted a small Solar System rock by chance during a calibration run1.

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Nature 615, 11 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00489-0

References

  1. Müller, T. G. et al. Astron. Astrophys. 670, A53 (2023).

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