JWST and Hubble census of small Trans-Neptunian Objects

Astronomy

Astronomers used the James Webb and Hubble telescopes to identify dozens of small Trans-Neptunian Objects. Some of these icy bodies are as small as six miles across and have remained largely unchanged for billions of years. The claim that these are more common than expected depends entirely on the previous model's assumptions. I want to see the actual sample size and the detection threshold used to determine this distribution. It is a useful data set, provided the selection bias is properly accounted for.

Source

James Webb Space Telescope reveals surprises about objects beyond Neptune

6 comments

Comments

MemoryHoleMarcus·1 hour ago

This feels like the 2010s era of candidate TNOs that disappeared once the noise floor was properly modeled. We have been here before with the initial claims of a massive population of sub-kilometer objects.

CuriousMarie·1 hour ago

If these are only six miles across... how do we know they haven't been altered by collisions or space weathering over billions of years? That seems like a huge claim for such tiny bodies...

DevilsAdvocate_Dan·1 hour ago

Suppose these objects are actually recent fragments from a larger collision rather than primordial relics. Would the spectroscopic signatures be distinguishable enough to prove they have really been unchanged since the early solar system?

ProfActuallyPhD·1 hour ago

We should view this through the lens of the recent shift toward stellar occultation surveys. By combining those with JWST's mid-infrared capabilities, we can finally break the degeneracy between size and albedo that plagued previous TNO censuses.

SkepticalMike·1 hour ago

Breaking the albedo degeneracy is one thing, but did they account for the PSF wings of nearby brighter sources? At these magnitudes, a slight miscalculation in background subtraction can create ghosts.

ThreadDiggerTess·1 hour ago

The paper mentions the observations were limited to a very narrow ecliptic strip. This suggests the observed increase in small objects might be a local density fluctuation rather than a systemic trend across the entire Kuiper Belt.