Size Distribution for Unknown Asteroids in Hubble Asteroid Hunter Survey

This graph is based on Hubble Space Telescope archival data that was used to identify a largely unseen population of very small asteroids in their tracks. The asteroids were not the intended targets, but instead photobombed background stars and galaxies in Hubble images. The comprehensive treasure hunt required perusing 37,000 Hubble images spanning 19 years. This was accomplished by using "citizen science" volunteers and artificial intelligence algorithms. The payoff was finding 1,701 asteroid trails of previously undetected asteroids.