An international team of astronomers has managed to detect a new Near Earth Object (NEO) that crosses the Earth’s orbit, a “planet killer asteroid” potentially dangerous e largest discovered in nearly eight years.
According to the researchers’ statement, the Apollo-class asteroid with 1.5 km wide was baptized as NEO 2022 AP7.
How they found the asteroid potentially dangerous
Astronomers used the Dark energy chamber (DECam) to search for these objects in the space between the orbits of the Earth and Venus, a region called the inner solar system.
This camera is mounted on the Victor M. Blanco telescopewhich has a mirror of 4 meters in diameter and is located in the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, in Chile.
This is a very complicated cosmic region for observing, as asteroid hunters have to contend with the interference of the Sun’s glare, according to the article published by The Astronomical Journal that spreads RT.
For this, taking advantage of the few minutes of twilight, astronomers have already found 2022 AP7 two other rare Atira / Apohele-class asteroids, 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27with diameters greater than 1 km.
what astronomers say
“So far we have found two large asteroids close to Earth that are about 1 km in diameter, a size we call killer of the planet“said Scott Sheppard, astronomer with the Carnegie Institution (USA).
According to the report, 2022 AP7 has an orbit that may someday position it on the path of the earthwhile LJ4 of 2021 and PH27 of 2021 have orbits that do not pose a threat.
They also claim that 2021 PH27 is the the closest known asteroid to the Sun.and suffers a greater gravitational effect than any other object in our solar system.
The shocking fact is that its surface gets hot enough to do this melt lead.
“There are probably only a few NEOs of similar size to be found and these large unknown asteroids likely have orbits that keep them within the orbits of Earth and Venus most of the time,” Sheppard described.
And he specified that until now «they were alone discovered about 25 asteroids with full orbits within the Earth’s orbit“.
complex mission
Finding these kinds of objects in space is not easy, as you can imagine.
“Large areas of the sky are needed because internal asteroids are rare,” Sheppard explained. He added: “It takes deep images because the weak bodies and you are fighting the bright twilight sky near the Sun, as well as the distorting effect of the Earth’s atmosphere. ”
Along the same lines, he said DECam can cover large areas of the sky at depths that cannot be reached with smaller telescopes, which “allows you to go deeper, cover more sky, and probe the inner solar system in a way never. seen before “.
These types of inland asteroid populations are critical to completing the census of near-Earth asteroids, including some of the most likely Earth-based impactors that are not readily identifiable.
Source: Clarin
