Scientists Discover The Fastest-Spinning Asteroid, Offering New Clues About Space Rocks

Scientists have found a space rock that spins faster than any other asteroid of its size ever seen. This exciting discovery helps researchers learn more about how strong and unusual some asteroids can be, reported Newsweek.

Scientists have discovered a remarkable object in space that is attracting attention due to its unusually rapid rotation. This discovery highlights just how robust and mysterious some asteroids can be.

The asteroid, designated "2025 MN45", is believed to be the fastest-rotating asteroid among those larger than 0.3 miles in size. It completes a full rotation approximately every two minutes. This celestial body is about 2,300 feet wide and roughly the length of eight football fields.

This record-breaking asteroid is one of 19 super-fast and ultra-fast rotating asteroids that astronomers identified last year from a sample of nearly 1,900 asteroids first discovered in June.

These asteroids were detected using the world's largest digital camera, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time Camera, located at the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Cerro Pachon, Chile. The study is based on data collected over seven nights for approximately 10 hours during April and May of last year.

The researchers found 76 asteroids with reliably determined rotation periods. These included 16 super-fast rotating asteroids with rotation periods between 13 minutes and 2.2 hours, and three ultra-fast rotating asteroids that complete a full rotation in less than five minutes.

All 19 of the newly identified rapidly rotating asteroids are longer than an American football field, which is approximately 295 feet long. The fastest-rotating asteroid in the main asteroid belt, 2025 MN45, is approximately 2,329 feet in diameter and completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes. The study's lead author, astronomer Sara Greenstreet, said in a statement that it is clear that this asteroid must be made of extremely strong material in order to remain in one piece despite rotating at such a high speed.