How a cottage stargazer has put the world's top astronomers in a spin...

(From Western Daily Press)

Ever since he was six years old, when he gazed into the cloudless sky at night to be mesmerised by the wonder of the Milky Way Richard Miles has been fascinated by the cosmos.

He and his older brother John concocted their own observatory in the backyard and throughout his life he has been studying the stars, planets and movements in space.

Now amateur astronomer Dr Miles, 56, has made an astounding discovery after finding and recording the fastest rotating natural object known in our solar system.

Scorching through space at almost 45 kilometres per second (more than 100,000mph) it has been classified as a near-Earth asteroid, even though it came no closer than one million km (620,000 miles) and did not pose a threat to our planet.

Dr Miles' observations have proved the newly discovered asteroid, 2008 HJ, is revolving once every 42.7 seconds, classifying it is as a superfast rotator. It is spinning almost twice as fast as the previous record holder, asteroid 2000 DO8, which was discovered eight years ago and rotated once every 78 seconds.

Dr Miles made the record- breaking observation by operating a huge telescope in Australia from his computer keyboard at his thatched cottage in Dorset.