The Near Infrared Spectrograph was just added, completing the package of four instruments including a Near Infrared Camera, a Mid Infrared Instrument, a Fine Guidance Sensor and two different Near Infrared Spectrographs. “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. Group photo of James Webb Space Telescope project members with the complete Integrated Science Instrument Module. “We - completely unexpectedly - detected a small asteroid in publicly available MIRI calibration observations,” explained Thomas Müller, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany. ![]() ![]() More observations are needed to better characterize this object’s nature and properties. The object is likely the smallest observed to date by Webb and may be an example of an object measuring under 1 kilometer in length within the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. The James Webb Space Telescope will find the first galaxies that formed in the early universe and peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems. They used data from the calibration of the MIRI instrument, in which the team serendipitously detected an interloping asteroid. After decades of planning and months of delays, the James Webb telescope was successfully launched by NASA on Christmas Day and arrived in final orbit on January 24, 2022. The asteroid roughly the size of Rome’s Colosseum - between 300 to 650 feet (100 to 200 meters) in length - has been detected by an international team of European astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. THE HIGH-RESOLUTION picture quality of NASA's James Webb telescope allows it to capture deeper parts of what lies beyond the solar system. ![]() Webb Detects Extremely Small Main Belt AsteroidĪn illustration of an asteroid.
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