Astronomers Track Down Asteroids in Hubble Archive

ABOUT THIS IMAGE:

This is a broken asteroid trail crossing the outer regions of galaxy NGC 4548 in Coma Berenices. Five trail segments (shown in white) were extracted from individual exposures and added to a cleaned color image of the galaxy. The asteroid enters the image at top center and moves down toward the lower left. Large gaps in the trail occur because the telescope is orbiting the Earth and cannot continuously observe the galaxy. This asteroid has a visual magnitude of 20.8, a diameter of one mile (1.6 kilometers), and was seen at a distance of 254 million miles from Earth and 292 million miles from the sun.

Object Name: NGC 4548

Image Type: Astronomical

Credit: R. Evans and K. Stapelfeldt (JPL) and NASA

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The above image is part of a montage:

Montage Image: Curved Trails of Small Asteroids Image Type: Astronomical PRC1998-10 Asteroid in Hubble Data Image Type: Astronomical Asteroid in Hubble Data Image Type: Astronomical Asteroid in Hubble Data Image Type: Astronomical

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