Suara.com – For scientist find a asteroid with the fastest orbit in the solar system.
The space rock known as 2021 PH27 it completes one rotation around the Sun every 113 Earth days.
That is the shortest orbital period of any known solar system object except for Mercury, which takes only 88 days to orbit the Sun.
However, 2021 PH27 is moving on a much more elliptical path than Mercury.
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It gets much closer to the Sun, about 20 million km at closest approach.
During that trajectory, the surface of 2021 PH27 becomes hot enough to melt lead, with a temperature of 500 degrees Celsius.
The experts found that the orbit of the space rock is also unstable in the long term.
If it doesn’t get off its current course, there’s a chance that 2021 PH27 will collide with the Sun, Mercury, or Venus within a few million years from now.
2021 PH27 was first spotted on August 13 by astronomers using the Dark Energy Camera (DEC), an instrument mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope in Chile.
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The team of experts was able to determine the asteroid’s orbit over the next few days, thanks to further observations by the DEC and Magellan Telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory.
Reported from Space.com, Tuesday (24/8/2021), scientists estimate that 2021 PH27 will have a width of about 1 km.
The space rock may have come from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
However, PH27’s 2021 orbital path is tilted 32 degrees relative to the plane of the solar system.
Such a high trend suggests that 2021 PH27 may be an extinct asteroid created in the outer solar system.
Then, 2021 PH27 is captured into a closer orbit after passing Mars or another rocky planet.
Astronomers will make further observations of this asteroid, but the team of experts will have to wait several months to collect data.
2021 PH27 is now moving behind the Sun and from the point of view of an observer on Earth, it will not reappear until early 2022.
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