Dark Asteroids Found Near Earth

A new infrared telescope has found 16 to 20 previously unknown asteroids that come close to Earth. The asteroids are dark, with most reflecting less than one-tenth of the sunlight that hits them. One object is as dark as asphalt, reflecting less than 5 percent of its light.

The objects, which some scientists suspect may be spent comets, pose no threat to the planet, though how they got here remains a mystery.

This population tells us a lot about the solar system's history and formation, said NASA's Amy Mainzer, the lead researcher on a project to use a new infrared telescope called WISE to search for near-Earth objects.

The Wide-Field Infrared Explorer, or WISE, has been on the hunt for about seven weeks, mapping the sky for objects that radiate in the infrared. Within six months, WISE is expected to have surveyed the entire sky.We're just getting the first data on asteroids in general, Mainzer told Discovery News. It's still really, really early so we don't have an idea of how big this population actually is.

About half of the newly found objects reflect less than 10 percent of the sunlight that hits them, making them difficult if not impossible to spot with visible light telescopes. WISE finds objects by their heat emissions.

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