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SgtPepe t1_j7n5yav wrote

Reply to comment by -Badger2- in The James Webb Space Telescope just found an asteroid by total accident, its smallest object yet by pecika

How can the telescope see clearer things millions of light years away but something inside our own solar system is blurry pixels?

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Aethelric t1_j7n6i9w wrote

This is reductive, but think of a telescope like a zooming lens on a typical camera. When you zoom in on an object to get a clear shot, you need to set your focus to do so. Objects that are closer or farther than where you've set your focus will be progressively more blurry and harder to make out.

What's happened here is that JWST was interested in something at a completely different distance, but caught a blurry image of something much closer.

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JohnDavidsBooty t1_j7o2rho wrote

because a star is very large and gives off its own light while an asteroid is very small and reflects a mere fraction of the light that reaches it

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