An international team of astronomers has discovered an asteroid about 1.5 kilometers across that could collide with Earth in the worst-case scenario and destroy it in the distant future. 2022 AP7 is the largest asteroid “discovered in the past eight years that is potentially dangerous for Earth,” said research group Noirlab.
2022 AP7 “intersects Earth’s orbit, making it a potentially dangerous asteroid,” said lead author Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science. However, the danger is small, as the asteroid normally crosses its orbit “very far” from Earth.
Route can still change
So the threat is that, like any asteroid, the orbit of 2022 AP7 will be slowly altered due to gravity, particularly from planets. It is therefore difficult to make predictions over a very long period of time.
In 2022, AP7 will take five years to orbit the sun in its current orbit, while still being several million kilometers from the blue planet at its closest point. The risk of a collision with Earth is purely hypothetical, but it would have “devastating effects on life as we know it,” Sheppard said. Dust thrown into the atmosphere would block sunlight, cool the planet and cause a mass extinction.
Asteroid hiding in the sunlight
According to the researchers, most asteroids of this size have already been discovered. But 2022 AP7 was hiding in an area where sunlight is usually too bright for telescopes. 2022 AP7 has now been discovered along with two other near-Earth asteroids using a high-tech instrument on the Victor M. Blanco Telescope in Chile, which was originally developed to study dark matter.
The findings of Sheppard and his team were published in The Astronomical Journal. The other two asteroids pose no risk to Earth, they say, but one of them is the closest asteroid ever found to the sun.
NASA practiced the emergency
To send a dangerous asteroid past Earth in an emergency, NASA successfully conducted a test mission in late September: They deliberately collided a space probe with a harmless asteroid, altering its orbit.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
