Astronomers: This is the asteroid closest to the sun

Astronomers have discovered an asteroid orbiting closer to the sun than any other previously observed.

In addition, scientists have found two more asteroids, one of which could one day collide with Earth.

Astronomer Scott Sheppard and his team at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., United States, are behind the discoveries. Their results were published in Astronomical Journal.

Asteroids near the sun

Asteroids 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27 were spotted last year, but this is the first time astronomers have been able to properly examine their orbits.

With a diameter of just over a kilometer, asteroids are located in the area between the Sun and Earth.

However, 2021 PH27 has caught the eye, as it moves in an orbit about 20 million kilometers from the Sun, which is just over 13 percent of the distance between the Sun and Earth.

With an average speed of 106 km/sec and a temperature of about 500 degrees when it’s closer to the sun, it’s closer to our star than any other asteroid previously observed — closer than any other object we know of.

In addition, PH27 2021 will orbit very close to Venus in the next few thousand years and may collide with the planet within a few million years.

The researchers also found a new asteroid called 2022 AP7, which is just over 1.5 kilometers in diameter.

It orbits a little further away than the other two asteroids, and moves in an orbit that extends from Earth’s orbit beyond Jupiter.

As the massive 2022 AP7 passes into Earth’s orbit, it will be on the far side of the Sun, but it’s slowly getting closer to us, making it possible that it will hit Earth one day.

However, Scott Shepard calls for calm in one Interview with New Scientist:

– It will take thousands, if not tens of thousands of years before it appears in the night sky and may come very close to Earth. But it won’t come close to Earth for long.

Ten minutes in the morning and evening can be measured

It can be difficult to find asteroids moving in the interior of our solar system along the stretch between our star and Earth because astronomers must point telescopes at the sun.

Brightness can be difficult to manage because the massive amount of sunlight dazzles and can destroy telescopes. Therefore, the light of the sky makes it difficult to notice elements other than the brightest objects.

Scott Sheppard and his research team have found a way around this problem.

By only making observations during the 10 minutes in the morning and evening when the sun was just below the horizon, they could easily control the telescope’s brightness.

In addition, they used the so-called Dark Energy Camera (DEC), a specially designed camera installed on the Blanco 4m telescope in Chile.

The telescope is specifically designed to observe bright light from the sun, while the DEC is designed to observe dark energy.

Because the camera has a wide field of view and high sensitivity, especially in the infrared, researchers can more easily detect new asteroids.

Astronomers hope to map more of these asteroids to predict their orbits and learn more about the history of the solar system.