The Hubble Space Telescope does its best work looking into deep space, beyond our solar system and even beyond our galaxy. But now and then it does some nice work around here, too.

Astronomers reviewing images taken of the Sagittarius dwarf irregular galaxy found the trail of a faint asteroid that had drifted across the scene. There are 13 separate reddish arcs that make up the path. The data was gathered last August and the image was released today.

Because Hubble is orbiting the Earth and the planet is moving around the Sun, the series of exposures taken to produce this image caused the asteroid to move in relation to background stars. Gaps in time between each exposure cause the gaps in the trail.

The asteroid was not previously known. The new observations reveal it was about 169 million miles (272 million kilometers) from Earth when the observations were made. The rock orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is roughly 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) in diameter.

The discovery is discussed in the October issue of New Astronomy.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: NASA, ESA and Y. Momany (University of Padua)