The object in question is a newly discovered asteroid dubbed 2008 HJ, first detected on April 24 by a robotic telescope in Socorro, New Mexico. The object was then pointed by the Faulkes Telescope Project's website as a possible observation target and investigated by an amateur astronomer who discovered that 2008 HJ is the fastest spinning natural object in the solar systems, executing one rotation around its axis in less than a minute.

The Faulkes Telescope Project is an educational charity project started in 2000 with the role of offering both amateur and professional astronomers training and access to two of the best optical telescopes, in Hawaii and Australia. The finding is by no means surprising from a scientific point of view, although since it was an educational observatory project that made the discovery, it goes to show that providing amateurs with professional instruments could ultimately lead to record astronomical discoveries.

"It's nice to have this record at the moment, but we're really hoping to get some schools on board to break that record in future, working with amateurs", says Paul Roche of Cardiff University, who is also the director of the Faulkes Telescope Project.

The discovery was made by Richard Miles, a retired petrochemical researcher and vice-president of the British Astronomical Association, who measured the rotation speed of the asteroid with the help of the 2-meter Faulkes telescope in Siding Spring, Australia. Since it is traveling at about 45 kilometers per second in relation to Earth and it only approached the planet at a distance of 2.8 lunar distances, the small object was visible for only a few days.

Nevertheless, Miles was able to prove that its highly variable brightness is due to different light reflection properties on each side, meaning that the asteroid was spinning relatively fast around its axis, about once ever 42.7 seconds, which makes it the fastest spinning naturally occurring object ever found in the solar system.

The previous record was held by a rock dubbed 2000 DO8, which has a spinning rate of once every 78 seconds and was discovered some eight years back.

2008 HJ's relatively small size, just 12 by 24 meters, and fast rotation rate suggest that it is most likely a compact object, with a mass of around 5000 tons.

"People have suspected that these asteroids with very high rotation speeds exist. This now pushes us into a new area and hopefully we'll find something even faster in the future. This discovery is a great incentive for schools - we're trying to encourage them to do real science. I think they can jump on this bandwagon now that the amateurs have opened it up", Roche said.