Astronomers discover largest potentially dangerous asteroid detected in eight years | News

Twilight observations have enabled astronomers to spot three near-Earth asteroids (NEA) hiding in the sun’s glare. These NEAs are part of an elusive population lurking in the orbits of Earth and Venus. One of the asteroids is the largest object potentially dangerous to Earth discovered in the past eight years. An international team using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, has identified three new near- Earth asteroids (NEAs) discovered in the interior of our solar system, the inner region of the orbits of Earth and Venus. This is a notoriously challenging region for observations as asteroid hunters have to contend with the sun’s glare. However, taking advantage of the brief but favorable twilight observation conditions, the astronomers found an elusive trio of NEAs.