What is the story of the huge “potentially dangerous” asteroid on Earth? .. This is what astronomers say

The discovery of the asteroid is credited to the Victor M. Telescope.

Blanco in Chile. Archive

Yesterday, astronomers announced that they had discovered an asteroid about 1.5 kilometers in size near Earth, which may collide with our planet in the distant future, and cause worldwide destruction, but it is still very far away.

Most asteroids of this size were originally discovered, according to scientists, but this asteroid was so far hidden in the glare of the sun, which made it very difficult to detect.

This asteroid, called AP72022, "crosses the course of the Earth, making it a potentially dangerous astronomical object," said astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Scott Sheppard.

However, Sheppard reassured that the asteroid is not currently threatening to hit Earth, because it remains "too far" when it crosses our planet's orbit.

The threat comes from the fact that the trajectory of this asteroid, like any other, will be slowly modified due to the gravitational forces exerted on it, especially from the planets.

So it's hard to make any very long-term forecasts.

And the US NOIRLab laboratories, which operates several observatories, said in a statement that this asteroid is "the largest object of potential danger on Earth discovered in the past eight years."

This near-Earth asteroid takes five years to orbit the sun, and is now millions of kilometers from Earth at its closest.

So the risk is still highly hypothetical, but in the event of a collision, an asteroid of this size would have "a devastating effect on life as we know it," according to Scott Sheppard.

In this case, the dust that would enter the atmosphere would block sunlight, cooling the planet and causing a mass extinction of species.

Thanks to the discovery of the telescope Victor M.

Blanco in Chile, and the DECam instrument originally developed to study dark matter.

The results were published in the scientific journal The Astronomical Journal.

Two other asteroids have been discovered in this complex and hard-to-observe region, including the closest known asteroid to the sun.

But these two asteroids do not pose any danger to Earth.

About 30,000 asteroids of all sizes, including 850 asteroids with a size of one kilometer or more, were observed near Earth.

Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in the Earth's solar system are considered a threat to our planet, and none of them will be in the next 100 years.

But not all asteroids have been spotted yet, as there remain 20 to 50 objects close to Earth to be observed, according to Scott Sheppard, who explains that “most of them are in orbits that make them difficult to find, such as those that keep them inside (orbit) Earth, and make it difficult Seeing it because of the glare of the sun.

And the US space agency (NASA) conducted an experimental mission at the end of last September, during which a spacecraft was pushed towards a non-dangerous asteroid, which proves that it is possible to modify its path.

This unprecedented test mission, despite its modest goal compared to the scenarios of a number of science fiction films such as “Armageden,” launched the era of training on how humanity would defend itself if an asteroid threatened life on Earth in the future.

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