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Hubble spots space rocks — with aid from citizen scientists

Analysis of images from an iconic telescope reveals asteroids that are probably too small to detect from Earth.
The Crab Nebula shown in green, blue and orange swirls, with a pale trail passing across it.

A citizen astronomer spotted the faint asteroid trail curving from bottom left to upper right across this image of the Crab Nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, M. Thévenot

A combination of citizen science and artificial intelligence has revealed more than 1,700 previously undetected asteroid trails in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over 2 decades1.

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Nature 605, 593 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01330-w

References

  1. Kruk, S. et al. Astron. Astrophys. 661, A85 (2022).

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