Usain Bolt of Asteroids. Get the details here…
Wednesday, 25th August 2021
A few days after an asteroid flew over Earth at a speed of 94,000 kilometers per hour, astronomers discovered the fastest asteroid in the solar system, whose orbital path around the sun only lasted 113 Earth days. This asteroid, named 2021 PH27, was discovered by Chile's Dark Energy Chamber (DECam).
Scott S Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute of Science passes the dark energy camera installed on the Victor M. Blanc Telescope at the Toloro Mountain American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. The asteroid was discovered while tracking the collected data. On August 13, Ian Dell`antonio and Shenming Fu from Brown University captured images of unknown objects for the first time.
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2021 PH27 not only has the smallest orbital path but also the smallest average distance of any known asteroid in our solar system, only Mercury has a shorter period and a smaller semi-major axis. Astronomers say that this asteroid is so close to the sun’s huge gravitational field that it experiences the largest general relativity effect of any known celestial body in the solar system.
2021 PH27 has an ellipse of 70 million kilometers, giving it an orbital period of 113 days in a thin orbit. When it orbits the Sun, it will pass through the orbits of Mercury and Venus.
Astronomers believed that it was part of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but it was rejected due to gravitational disturbance from the inner planets that brought it closer to the sun. If it is a comet, the researchers are still looking at another angle, because it has a high orbital inclination of 32 degrees, which may have come from the outer solar system, but was captured in a shorter period orbit bypassing one of the planets. terrestrial.
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"Its orbit is likely to be unstable for a long period of time. It may eventually collide with Mercury, Venus, or the Sun several million years later, or be ejected from the inner solar system by the gravitational influence of the inner planets." the astronomer said in a statement.
Asteroids are the key to understanding the origin of the universe, and most importantly, understanding our own planet. How did it all start? "Compared to the outside, the ratio of the asteroids inside the Earth and Venus will give us an idea of ??the strength and composition of these objects," Sheppard said.
He added that understanding the number of asteroids in the Earth’s orbit is important to complete the census of asteroids near the Earth, including some ground impactors that are most likely to approach the Earth during the day, and they are not easily found in most studies.
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Astronomy I recently witnessed an asteroid passing by the Earth. Launch yourself at speeds exceeding 94,000 kilometers per hour. NASA listed the asteroid 2016 AJ193 as potentially dangerous because it approached Earth on the night of August 21. The agency monitors more than 26,000 near-Earth asteroids, of which more than 1,000 are considered potentially dangerous. The mechanism tracks the asteroid's movement around the sun to determine its position and calculates the elliptical path.
The News Talkie Bureau
Source:
Indiatoday