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Three "killer planet" asteroids near Earth are discovered, one of them a danger to the planet

2022-11-01 18:37:44Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Three "killer planet" asteroids near Earth are discovered, one of them
Three near-Earth "killer planet" asteroids are discovered

Astronomers have spotted three near-Earth asteroids that were undetected due to the sun's glare. One of the asteroids is the largest potentially dangerous object for Earth discovered during the last eight years.

According to CNN , the asteroids belong to a group found within the orbits of Earth and Venus, but they are extremely difficult to observe because the sun's glare shields them from telescope observations.

To avoid the sun's glare, an international team followed the space rocks while using the Dark Energy Camera located on the 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

Their findings were published Monday in The Astronomical Journal.

One of the asteroids, called 2022 AP7, is 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) across and has an orbit that could bring it within Earth's path in the future, but it's hard for scientists to know when.

"Our twilight study is searching the area inside the orbits of Earth and Venus for asteroids," said study lead author Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Earth and Planetary Laboratory in Washington.

So far we have found two large near-Earth asteroids that are about 1 kilometer across, a size we call planet killers."

Scientists discovered that the asteroid does pass into Earth's orbit, but it does so when Earth is on the opposite side of the sun – a pattern that will continue for centuries as it takes five years for the asteroid to complete an orbit around the sun.

But over time, the asteroid's orbital motion will be more synchronized with that of Earth.

Scientists don't know the asteroid's orbit precisely enough to say how dangerous it might become in the future, but for now, it "will stay very far from Earth," Sheppard said.

A near-Earth asteroid 1 kilometer or larger "would have a devastating impact on life as we know it," he said.

Dust and pollutants would fill the atmosphere for years, cooling the planet and preventing sunlight from reaching Earth's surface.

"It would be a mass extinction event the likes of which has not been seen on Earth for millions of years," Sheppard said.

The team expects to find more planet-killing asteroids over the next two years. Scientists believe there are about 1,000 near-Earth objects larger than 1 kilometer in size, and searches over the past decade have found about 95% of them.

The other two asteroids, 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27, are in much safer orbits that pose no threat to Earth.

However, astronomers are intrigued by 2021 PH27 because it is the closest known asteroid to the sun. As the space rock approaches our star, its surface reaches temperatures hot enough to melt lead.


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