{"id":17066,"date":"2026-01-07T18:41:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rubin-observatory-spots-an-asteroid-that-spins-fast-enough-to-set-a-record\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T18:41:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:41:59","slug":"rubin-observatory-spots-an-asteroid-that-spins-fast-enough-to-set-a-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rubin-observatory-spots-an-asteroid-that-spins-fast-enough-to-set-a-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubin Observatory spots an asteroid that spins fast enough to set a record"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An artist\u2019s conception zeroes in on a main-belt asteroid called 2025 MN45, which makes a full rotation in less than two minutes. (Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory \/ NOIRLab \/ SLAC \/ AURA \/ P. Marenfeld)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Astronomers say they\u2019ve found an asteroid that spins faster than other space rocks of its size.<\/p>\n

The asteroid, known as 2025 MN45, is nearly half a mile (710 meters) in diameter and makes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes, based on an analysis of data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. \u201cThis is now the fastest-spinning asteroid that we know of, larger than 500 meters,\u201d University of Washington astronomer Sarah Greenstreet said today at the American Astronomical Society\u2019s winter meeting in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

Greenstreet, who serves as an assistant astronomer at the National Science Foundation\u2019s NOIRLab and heads the Rubin Observatory\u2019s working group for near-Earth objects and interstellar objects, is the lead author of a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that describes the discovery and its implications. It\u2019s the first peer-reviewed paper based on data from Rubin\u2019s LSST Camera in Chile.<\/p>\n

2025 MN45 is one of more than 2,100 solar system objects that were detected during the observatory\u2019s commissioning phase. Over time, the LSST Camera tracked variations in the light reflected by those objects. Greenstreet and her colleagues analyzed those variations to determine the size, distance, composition and rate of rotation for 76 asteroids, all but one of which are in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (The other asteroid is a near-Earth object.)<\/p>\n

The team found 16 \u201csuper-fast rotators\u201d spinning at rates ranging between 13 minutes and 2.2 hours per revolution \u2014 plus three \u201cultra-fast rotators,\u201d including 2025 MN45, that make a full revolution in less than five minutes.<\/p>\n

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This chart shows the light curve of 2025 MN45. The y-axis shows the asteroid\u2019s brightness, and the x-axis shows its phase, or where it is in its rotation. The resulting curve shows the asteroid\u2019s fluctuating brightness as it spins. Light curves can help scientists determine an asteroid\u2019s rotation period, size, shape and surface properties. (Credit: NSF\u2013DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory \/ NOIRLab \/ SLAC \/ AURA\/ J. Pollard)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Greenstreet said 2025 MN45 appears to consist of solid rock, as opposed to the \u201crubble pile\u201d material that most asteroids are thought to be made of.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also believe that it\u2019s likely a collisionary fragment of a much larger parent body that, early in the solar system\u2019s history, was heated enough that the material internal to it melted and differentiated,\u201d Greenstreet said. She and her colleagues suggest that the primordial collision blasted 2025 MN45 from the dense core of the parent body and sent it whirling into space.<\/p>\n

Astronomers have previously detected fast-spinning asteroids that measure less than 500 meters wide, but this is the first time larger objects have been found with rotational rates that are faster than five minutes per revolution. The Rubin team\u2019s other two ultra-fast rotators have rates of 1.9 minutes and 3.8 minutes.<\/p>\n

What would it be like to take a spin on 2025 MN45? Imagine riding on a Ferris wheel \u2014 say, the Seattle Great Wheel, which typically makes three revolutions in 10 to 12 minutes. Now make the wheel more than 10 times taller, and make the rotation rate at least twice as fast. It\u2019d feel as if you were going more than 40 mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were standing on it, it would probably be quite the ride to be going around on the outside edge of this thing that\u2019s the size of eight football fields,\u201d Greenstreet said.<\/p>\n

But the significance of the study goes beyond imagining an extraterrestrial amusement ride.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is only the beginning of science for the Rubin Observatory,\u201d Greenstreet said. \u201cWe are already seeing that we can study smaller asteroids at farther distances than we\u2019ve ever been able to study before. And being able to study these fast rotators further, we\u2019re going to learn a lot of really crucial information about the internal strength, composition and collisional histories of these primitive solar system bodies that date back to the formation of the solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, \u201cLightcurves, Rotation Periods, and Colors for Vera C. Rubin Observatory\u2019s First Asteroid Discoveries,\u201d lists 71 co-authors. Authors from the University of Washington include Greenstreet as well as Zhuofu (Chester) Li, Dmitrii E. Vavilov, Devanshi Singh, Mario Juri\u0107, \u017deljko Ivezi\u0107, Joachim Moeyens, Eric C. Bellm, Jacob A. Kurlander, Maria T. Patterson, Nima Sedaghat, Krzysztof Suberlak and Ian S. Sullivan.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Office of Science. The University of Washington was one of the founding members of the consortium behind the project, which benefited from early contributions by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and software executive Charles Simonyi. The observatory\u2019s Simonyi Survey Telescope was named in honor of Simonyi\u2019s family.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An artist\u2019s conception zeroes in on a main-belt asteroid called 2025 MN45, which makes a full rotation in less than two minutes. (Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory \/ NOIRLab \/ SLAC \/ AURA \/ P. Marenfeld) Astronomers say they\u2019ve found an asteroid that spins faster than other space rocks of its size. The asteroid, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4393,4365,1519,1661,4368,4369],"class_list":["post-17066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aas","tag-asteroid","tag-asteroids","tag-astronomy","tag-university-of-washington","tag-vera-rubin-observatory"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}