‘Planet killer’ asteroid that could one day collide with Earth is discovered

At the same time, DECam can also provide so-called “deep” observations which are able to pick up on extremely faint objects.Both are invaluable, the team said, when hunting for asteroids inside of Earth’s orbit.

Dr Sheppard explained: “Large areas of sky are required because the inner asteroids are rare, and deep images are needed because asteroids are faint and you are fighting the bright twilight sky near the Sun as well as the distorting effect of Earth’s atmosphere.DECam can cover large areas of sky to depths not achievable on smaller telescopes, allowing us to go deeper, cover more sky, and probe the inner Solar System in ways never done before.”

According to the team — alongside detecting potentially hazardous asteroids — the study is also important for advancing our understanding of the distribution of small bodies in the Solar System.

At present, they explained, because such objects are easier to detect out in wide orbits, they tend to dominate current theoretical models of the solar system’s asteroid population.

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Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1690178/planet-killer-asteroid-earth-decam-2022-AP7-orbit-venus-science-news-latest