FILE - This artist’s illustration depicts 2025 MN45 — the fastest-rotating asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that scientists have ever found. The discovery was made using data from the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/P. Marenfeld / NSF's NOIRLab
Astronomers at the University of Washington recently discovered a record-breaking asteroid using early images from the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.
The team recently reported the fastest-spinning asteroid of its size to date. The finding was a surprise to the astronomers, who spotted it using test images from a telescope at the observatory.
“We’ve known that the Rubin Observatory was going to break lots of records,” said Sarah Greenstreet, the National Science Foundation astronomer and UW affiliate professor who led the team. “But to do it in some of the very, very first test images that were taken is quite incredible.”
In early January, they published the first peer-reviewed study to use key data from the observatory. Greenstreet’s team reported a large asteroid spinning at record speed for its size. There’s no chance it will hit Earth; it’s about 200 million miles away from us, in the asteroid belt that sits between Mars and Jupiter. And it’s huge.
“This asteroid, for some context, is about the length of eight football fields, or roughly twice as long as the Empire State Building,” Greenstreet said. “And it makes one complete spin in less than two minutes. So it’s quite wild to have this giant asteroid spinning so rapidly.”
She said the fast rotation tells scientists the asteroid is made of material that has a lot of strength, which keeps it from being pulled apart.
And, Greenstreet said, the team’s discovery has been met with excitement about the observatory’s potential to study a previously unreachable part of the asteroid population.
“This telescope is going to allow us to see things that are farther away than we’ve ever been able to see before,” Greenstreet said. “It has the largest digital camera ever constructed, that’s about the size of a small car.”
UW astronomers and engineers are instrumental to the Rubin Observatory’s operations in Chile, she added: they develop the software that helps it detect moving solar system objects.
People can get involved with the observatory’s citizen science projects to help scientists comb through data and find new comets.
Anna Marie Yanny is a reporter with KNKX.
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