Rubin Observatory will discover millions of new asteroids to consider for up-close exploration

In this illustration, a mosaic of several of Rubin Observatory’s observation footprints is projected upon some of the millions of asteroids that scientists will find in Rubin’s vast Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) dataset. A few of these asteroids may prove scientifically interesting enough to launch or redirect a spacecraft to investigate them. Before spacecraft missions can travel to small Solar System objects for detailed exploration, researchers first have to know which objects are worth visiting and where they are in the Solar System. Several spacecraft missions (including NASA’s Lucy, whose shape and orbit are represented in this image) are currently exploring the Solar System’s asteroid belt, Jupiter Trojans, and other nearby regions, with the potential to explore new objects detected by Rubin Observatory.

Alt text: An illustration of the asteroid belt as a dense donut-shaped ring of yellow points with the Sun at the center. The background is black with hints of dark blue in the corners and small white pinprick stars sprinkled throughout. A small illustrated Earth sits to the left of the Sun, and a semi-opaque, cone-like teal triangle extends from Earth toward the right. The cone opens up to a mosaic of a couple dozen small, square-like shapes representing Rubin Observatory’s LSST Camera’s detector area. The mosaic is overlaid onto a portion of the asteroid belt, and each tile represents a camera image that detects a group of asteroids. A thin curved white line begins behind the Sun and swings out around the Earth, tracing the path of a small, not-to-scale spacecraft heading toward the illuminated asteroids, ready for exploration.