Scientists have discovered the largest potentially dangerous asteroid in the past 8 years without being detected by hiding behind the Sun. It could hit Earth one day.
Various telescopes on Earth and on satellites orbiting the Earth have detected more than 20,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs), which could one day collide with our planet. But when it comes to discovering asteroids that roam completely in Earth’s orbit, our record is poor. So far, we have only discovered 25 such asteroids. The reason behind that is that the Sun’s glare prevents modern telescopes from looking at the entire sky for asteroids that could be deadly to our planet. A recent study discovered such a space rock, and it is claimed to be the largest potentially dangerous rock. small planet discovered in the past 8 years with a width of 1.5 km (approximately 4921 foot asteroid). And the worry is that it could hit Earth one day.
Largest potentially dangerous asteroid discovered
The research was published in the Astronomical Journal and used the 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco Dark Energy Camera (DECam) Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile to find this terrifying space rock. The asteroid has been named 2022 AP7. The interesting thing about this particular asteroid is that compared to other celestial bodies, its orbit is completely within Earth’s orbital space, and because of the way it is located, it could one day pass by. paths with our planet. And the bigger fear is that there might be more of the same thing.
“Our twilight survey is scanning the area in the orbit of The earth and Venus for asteroids. To date, we have found two large near-Earth asteroids about 1 km across, the size of what we call planetary killers,” said Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer and author said the lead author of the study. statement. He added: “It is likely that only a handful of NEAs of similar size have been found, and these large undiscovered asteroids may have orbits that keep them within the orbits of Earth and Venus. ”, he added.
The main reason why such discovery small planet too slow due to the intense glare of the Sun. Since telescopes contain highly sensitive instruments for viewing distant objects in space, the glare from Sun may overexpose any captured image or damage the device itself. This is why most telescopes only work in Earth’s night sky.
“Only about 25 asteroids have orbited completely within Earth’s orbit so far due to the difficulty of being observed near the glare of the Sun,” Sheppard said.
