Posted on 11/01/2022 9:37:19 AM PDT by Red Badger
video at link................
Scientists have discovered three elusive asteroids lurking in a region of space near the sun often cloaked by solar glare, including one they say has the capacity to deliver planetary devastation.
One of the asteroids, 2022 AP7, is roughly 1 mile wide and crosses Earth's orbit trajectory around the sun, rendering it one of the most "hazardous" asteroids discovered in the past eight years, a team of researchers announced Monday.
“Our twilight survey is scouring the area within the orbits of Earth and Venus for asteroids," said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science who helped write the research on 2022 AP7. “So far we have found two large near-Earth asteroids that are about 1 kilometer across, a size that we call planet killers.”
While the researchers believe 2022 AP7's orbit "may someday place it in Earth’s path," scientists contend it is unlikely to embark on an earth-shattering trek this century.
Planet Killer
An illustration shows an asteroid orbiting near the sun relative to Earth's orbit, which can make it difficult for scientists to detect due to solar glare.
DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/
“There is an extremely low probability of an impact in the foreseeable future,” Tracy Becker, a planetary scientist not involved with the study, told the New York Times.
Perhaps most startling about the discovery of 2022 AP7 is that it highlights the possibility that other hazardous asteroids could be lurking behind the glare of the sun, making them difficult for scientists to detect.
2022 AP7 was discovered alongside 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27 in the inner solar system, a sector inside the orbits of Earth and Venus, where the glare of the sun can make it difficult for scientists to get a visual on objects barreling through space.
Scientists managed to seize upon favorable twilight conditions to discover the trio by taking advantage of brief 10-minute windows that typically come twice a night to observe that portion of space without massive distortions from the sun's glare, according to the researchers.
A team of researchers deployed a dark energy camera at the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope in Chile, via the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab program, to help discover the elusive asteroids.
Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope
Curtis Schmidt Telescope (left), the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope (middle), and the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope (right) are shown at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
CTIO/NSF’s NOIRLab/AURA/H. Sto
“There are likely only a few [near-Earth asteroids] with similar sizes left to find, and these large undiscovered asteroids likely have orbits that keep them interior to the orbits of Earth and Venus most of the time,” Sheppard said. “Only about 25 asteroids with orbits completely within Earth’s orbit have been discovered to date because of the difficulty of observing near the glare of the Sun.”
Scientists indicated that 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27 posed less of a threat than 2022 AP7 because they "have orbits that safely remain completely interior to Earth’s orbit." Notably, 2021 PH27 is the asteroid known to be in the closest proximity to the sun, per the researchers. They published their findings in the Astronomical Journal.
NASA recently conducted the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, also known as DART, in which it crashed a satellite into a massive non-Earth-threatening asteroid with the intent of altering its trajectory in space to test its ability to stave off an Armageddon-style end-of-the-world scenario. That test was a success, NASA announced this month.
There’s always a far off planet killer asteroid, or an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!
The last major hit was over 12,000 years ago - I’m not falling for this latest ‘fear porn’...
And don’t forget the “intergalactic kegger”......
As long as we have Bruce Willis we have the means to deal with this
Thanks Red Badger.
BRUCE RETIRED...................
Didn’t he bring guys out of retirement to stop the last asteroid?
Reminds me of the Star Trek planet killer doomsday device.
The book of the Revelation . Chapter 8, verses 8,9,10?
Interesting - still not afraid...
I’m more worried about being bitten by a rabid jackalope.
Thanks for posting
And unicorn breath - that'll knock a person over...
Uh, that wasn’t its breath.
Yuck... LOL good one GingisK
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