Scientists find fastest known asteroid

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Astronomers have discovered a new asteroid, but unlike most space rocks of interest, this one is unremarkable as it threatens to strike Earth. The asteroid known as 2021 PH27 keeps its distance from our fragile blue marble. This distance varies considerably, however. According to researchers at the Carnegie Institution of Science, 2021 PH27 is the fastest asteroid orbiting the sun. It only takes 113 days to complete a turn, and it gets dangerously close to the sun every time.

Astronomers discovered the fast asteroid using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), part of the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile. Most recently, DECam has focused on studying massive galaxy clusters several million light years away. Earlier this month, the observatory turned its attention a little closer to home in search of objects like 2021 PH27. The DECam is, after all, one of the best performing CCD imagers in the world, and the PH27 immediately stood out.

After the first sighting, other instruments focused on PH27, which is about a kilometer in diameter. If he were to hit Earth, it would be a bad enough day for mankind. Fortunately, after calculating its orbit, it turns out that PH27 only gets closer to Mercury and Venus. It moves so fast that it completes one orbit of the sun every 113 days. It is the fastest of all known asteroids and barely slower than the 88 days of Mercury. However, Mercury’s orbit is narrower than PH27, which has a more elliptical orbit.

While the planet Mercury has a shorter year, PH27 is getting closer to the sun due to its elliptical course. On its closest approach, the asteroid is about 12.4 million miles (about 20 million kilometers) from smoldering fusion hell, compared to 29 million miles (47 million kilometers) for Mercury. During these passes, the surface of PH27 reaches approximately 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 Celsius).

Scott Sheppard, who made the first observation of 2021 PH27, notes that the asteroid’s orbit is likely not stable in the long term. In about a million years, PH27 will most likely end up colliding with Mercury, Venus, or the sun. It’s also possible that he receives a gravitational kick from one of these objects that ejects him from the solar system.

The origins of PH27 are unclear. If it is an ordinary asteroid, it is probably from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. However, its orbital tilt is tilted 32 degrees from the plane of the solar system. This suggests that it could be a very old “extinct” comet that originated in the outer solar system. Additional sightings planned over the next few months may reveal new details.

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