Trapped in the orbits of Earth and Venus, a new class of planet-killing asteroids has recently been discovered. They point to a great danger to Earth in the coming days.
Recently, scientists have made a discovery that could have terrifying consequences for us. A group of researchers found three new asteroids, one of them labeled “potentially dangerous,” orbiting in space between Earth and Venus. Although NASA has tracked more than 20,000 near-earth objects (NEOs), asteroids were not known to exist in this particular space. And the main reason behind it was the sun and its brilliance. These asteroids have the potential to blindly catch us and hit us when we don’t expect them. And if that happens, not even the planetary defense system DART could save us.
The study This discovery was published in The Astronomical Journal and used the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile to find this terrifying space rock. The largest of the three asteroids has been named AP7 in 2022. The concern with this particular asteroid is that it is 1.5 kilometers wide. And this large size has made it a potential planet killer for us. If it hit the Earth, it could mean the end of human civilization.
Why this new class of asteroids is a concern
The main reason why the discovery of such asteroids has been so slow is because of the intense glare of the sun. Since telescopes contain highly light-sensitive instruments to view objects far away in space, bright light from the sun can overexpose any image taken or damage the instrument itself. This is why most telescopes only work in Earth’s night sky field.
But this is bad news for us. We cannot protect ourselves from something we cannot see. The whole idea of planetary defense relies on tracking asteroids and predicting any incoming threats months before it can actually hit Earth. Furthermore, these asteroids pose a greater threat than the space rocks emerging from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, because they are not controlled by the heavy gravity of the gas giant.
With these new risks, the scientists are now concerned about an incoming asteroid strike that we probably aren’t even aware of.
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