A space rock mystery could finally get solved. Since long, scientists used to think that asteroids bring their lives to an end in the solar system by making a final death-dive in the sun, however, a latest study suggested that a few space rocks appear to disintegrate before ever coming near to the star.

The study could bring scientists closer to understanding how they can protect Earth from an asteroid hit.

Published in the journal Nature this week, the study has provided details about theoretical modeling done with 100,000 pictures of roughly 9,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) noticed over a time period of eight years by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.

The researchers have come up with a model of the NEO population in the solar system on the basis of the Catalina data, and discovered something strange.

The model displayed that there must be nearly 10 times more NEOs coming in roughly 8.6 million miles of the sun than were really observed.

Scientists spent about a year in verifying their data, and think that they could have an answer for why some asteroids aren’t present in the solar system's cosmic pool. The space rocks are apparently breaking apart.

Study co-author Robert Jedicke said in a statement, “The discovery that asteroids must be breaking up when they approach too close to the Sun was surprising and that's why we spent so much time verifying our calculations”.

In artist’s point of view, the orbit of an asteroid changes as it goes close to the sun. The surface of the asteroid expands and fractures due to intense heat and a part of the material breaks off.

The authors of the study aren’t so far exactly sure of what may be causing the asteroids to disintegrate, however, they have a few ideas.