A few days after the asteroid approached Earth at a speed of 94,000 kilometers per hour, astronomers discovered the fastest-orbiting asteroid in the solar system with an orbital path around the sun that spans only 113 Earth days. The asteroid, dubbed 2021 PH27, was discovered by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) in Chile.
Sheppard Scott of the Carnegie Institution for Science discovered the asteroid while crawling through data collected by a dark energy camera mounted on the Victor M Planck Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Pan American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. The image of the unidentified body was first taken on August 13 by Ian Dilantonio and Shenming Fu of Brown University.
2021 PH27 not only has the smallest orbital trajectory, but also has the smallest average distance of all trajectories Known asteroids in our solar system Only Mercury has a shorter period and a smaller semi-major axis. Very close to the Sun’s massive gravitational field, astronomers say, it experiences the greatest general relativity effect of any known object in the Solar System.
What is asteroid 2021 PH27?
2021 PH27 has an ellipse of 70 million km which makes it 113 days The orbital period is an elongated orbit that crosses the orbits of Mercury and Venus It also revolves around the sun.
Astronomers believe it is part of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but has been displaced by gravitational perturbations from the inner planets bringing it closer to the Sun. The researchers also analyzed another angle if it was a comet, as it has a high orbital tilt of 32 degrees and could have been from the outer solar system but was captured in a shorter-range orbit that was closer as it passed near a terrestrial one. planets.
The Victor M Blanco telescope under the stars is 4 meters long. (Photo: NSF)
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“It’s also possible that its orbit will be unstable for long periods of time, and may eventually collide with Mercury, Venus, or the Sun within a few million years, or be ejected from the inner solar system by the gravitational influence of the inner planets,” the astronomers said. in a statement.
Why do we study asteroids?
Asteroids are the key to understanding the origin of the universe and most importantly our planet. How did it all start? “part of Inner asteroids of Earth and Venus compared to the outside This will give us insight into the strength and composition of these objects,” said Sheppard.
He added that understanding the internal asteroid count in Earth’s orbit is important to complete the calculation of near-Earth asteroids, including some possible asteroids colliding with Earth that may approach the planet during the day and which are not easily detected in most surveys conducted. monitor. At night, away from the sun.
Astronomers recently watched asteroids cross the Earth It was traveling at a speed of more than 94,000 kilometers per hour. NASA has classified asteroid 2016 AJ193 as potentially dangerous as it approaches Earth on the night of August 21. The agency monitors more than 26,000 near-Earth asteroids and more than 1,000 of them are considered dangerous. The agency tracks the movement of the asteroid around the sun to determine its location, by calculating an elliptical path.
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