Glare from the Sun is the main reason telescopes look outward from Earth, away from the center of our solar system. For telescope surveys designed to look in the other direction, there’s more to come, new research suggests.
Specifically, ongoing studies are uncovering close Earth objects, or NEOs, including space rocks we’ve never seen. With regards to understanding the nearby planet group and the historical backdrop of planet development, finding and following these space rocks could be urgent.
Astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, has reported on some of the NEOs that lie between the Earth and the Sun — and the discoveries are just beginning.
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“New telescope surveys are combating solar glare and finding sunward asteroids during twilight,” Shepard writes in a column in the latest Science journal.
“These surveys have found many undiscovered asteroids in the Earth’s interior.”
Discoveries include the first asteroid with the inner part of Venus’ orbit (named ‘Ayló’chaxnim 2020 AV2) and the asteroid currently with the shortest known orbital period around the Sun (named 2021 PH27).
While modeling predicted that the asteroid should exist, now telescopes such as the Zwicky Transient Facility camera in California and the National Science Foundation’s Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile — which is attached to the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) — have actually detected it. They are looking for them. .
These asteroids are classified based on their position: we have Atreus (with the inner orbit of Earth), Venus (with the inner part of the orbit of Venus) and the hypothetical Vulcanoids (with the inner part of the orbit of Mercury). ) are
What we know from observations of craters on planets and moons is that the number of NEOs has remained stable over the past few billion years.
Considering their dynamically unstable orbits (about 10 billion years) and unpredictable motions (due to exposure to the Sun), this suggests that NEOs are being fueled in some way.
“The motion depends on the asteroid’s rotation, size, albedo and distance from the Sun,” Shepard writes. “The smaller an asteroid is and the more sunlight it absorbs, the faster it moves.”
Discoveries of these asteroids should help us understand more about their movements, and how the number of NEOs has managed to remain stable over such a long period of time. Scientists believe that most NEOs are asteroids that have been ejected from the central belt between Mars and Jupiter.
However, Shepard pointed out that NEOs may also have stable internal reserves, providing a steady supply of Atiras and Vatiras. They can eat up and replace asteroids that orbit the wider solar system, collide with a planet, or get obliterated by a close encounter with the Sun.
The smaller the asteroids, of course, the harder they are to find. Scientists estimate that about 90 percent of so-called ‘planet-killer’ NEOs — those 1 km (0.62 miles) or larger — have already been found.
“The last few unknown 1-km NEOs likely have close-to-the-Sun orbits or high inclinations, keeping them out of the main NEO survey fields,” Shepard writes.
