"Hubble's Search for Small Main Belt Asteroids"

The Hubble Space Telescope has been used to identify a large number of previously uncatalogued small main belt asteroids by analyzing 37,000 archived images spanning 19 years. Citizen scientists and a machine-learning algorithm were instrumental in this effort. The findings provide new insights into the formation and evolution of the asteroid belt, supporting theories of asteroid fragmentation due to collisions. This pioneering approach may be applied to other astronomical datasets, and the next steps involve characterizing the orbits and properties of these newly discovered asteroids.