There is an asteroid hidden in the glare of the sun, which has recently been detected and which could collide with the Earth.
The asteroid is 1.5 km wide, it is one of the large space rocks recently discovered in Earth orbits. It was titled 2022 AP7 and is on the opposite side of the sun.
This and two others were identified using the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, described in a study published Sept. 29 in The Astronomical Journal.
Find out more about this destructive asteroid, what the chances are of a collision and what is being done to avoid it.
Read more: Asteroid Map: The simulator presents asteroid damage in any region of the planet
A potential destroyer of the Earth has been identified
Major world powers and scholars are constantly investing in the possibilities of preventing space catastrophes. The study’s lead author, Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, said these asteroids could trigger a total extinction if they collide with Earth. They observe them through the Dark Energy Camera of the 4-meter Cerro Tololo Víctor M. Blanco telescope in the inner solar system.
Because the sun’s glare is intense, observations occur in only two 10-minute twilight windows. And because of this difficulty, in addition to the 25 asteroids already identified within Earth’s orbit, there are still many more unidentified.
The NASA space agency tracks and marks any object within 193 million km of Earth. And it has already estimated the trajectories of all near-Earth objects by the end of the century. Earth hasn’t faced any danger of apocalyptic collision so far, which doesn’t rule out the possibility, but that doesn’t mean they stop looking and are already looking for ways to deflect possible collisions.
