"It's not a question of if we're going to get a big meteor impact, the only question is when"
Hiding within our own Stellar neighborhood, asteroids and other celestial objects are
constantly whizzing by the planets and our Sun, on their massive Journeys through the
solar system. Sometimes these objects can wander into dangerous territory that can pose a risk to
itself and even threaten to cause serious damage to the planet's unfortunate enough
to fall in their paths and this population of a few hundreds of meters size object we actually
have found less than half of that population currently less than half of the deadly asteroids
astronomers studying the regions around the Sun have picked up on at least three different
asteroids who are exhibiting some surprising Behavior the vast majority of asteroids in
our solar system reside within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or within the Kuiper belt
that begins just beyond Neptune that includes Pluto and the planetary objects in their far
regions of the star system but sometimes objects can get loose from these structures and swing in
an orbit that's a bit different named 2020 AV2, an asteroid recently discovered at the Zwicky
Transient Facility, as a strange elliptical orbit that falls entirely between Mercury and Venus.
Once astronomers were able to map the orbits of this asteroid they were able to announce that
they had just discovered an entirely new class of object within the solar system the orbit of
2020 AV2 does not cross the orbit of either Venus or Mercury but instead perfectly orbits within
the two planets A lead astronomer at ZTF also noted that this asteroid has both the smallest
semi-major axis as well as the smallest aphelion, the furthest distance from the Sun an object gets,
of any other known asteroid. Sometimes it's easy to forget just how large space is, that an object
like this so close to Earth, on the scale of the cosmos, remains completely hidden for years before
its eventual discovery. But this asteroid does NOT pose any threat to us on Earth at its closest it
will still be over 11 million kilometers away 8 does not show any sign of changing its orbit
anytime soon. But it makes you think what else could be lurking out there, right in our backyard?
Another asteroid that lives outside of the normal belts likes to fly at a distance that is scarily
close to the Sun. Named for the Greek myth of Icarus who learned his lesson after Flying Too
Close to the Sun, this asteroid's orbit lasts for a little over a year and crosses the orbits
of Mercury and Venus. During its orbit, it spends a small amount of time flying extremely close to
the Sun getting within 20 million kilometers of it, 12 and a half million miles. That's
nearly 10 times closer than the orbit of the Earth and over 15 million kilometers 9 million
miles closer than Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun. But since the discovery of Icarus
more asteroids have been found that get even closer to the Sun. One of them, dubbed 2005 HC4,
orbits the sun while crossing the orbit of Mercury Venus Earth and Mars during it. This asteroid
travels within 0.071 astronomical units from the sun, which is just under 11 million kilometers
(7 million miles) and reaches a distance at the furthest point of over 530 million kilometers 339
million miles from the Sun but the distance from the Sun is not the only interesting thing about
this asteroid it is also traveling faster than any other known asteroid traveling at speeds over 565
000 kilometers per hour 35 000 miles an hour these three asteroids have been added to a list of only
20 asteroids that have been found orbiting within Earth's orbit dubbed at Tyra asteroids foreign
s aren't the only massive space rocks flying through the solar system coming dangerously
close to the Sun astronomers have found a comet named 323p Soho whose four-year orbit around the
sun brings it closer to the star than possibly any other object a comet is a celestial object
composed of dust Rock and Ice which heats up to create a glowing head that spits out dust
and gases leaving behind a bright Tail as they fly and this comet in particular has a
rather large orbit that takes it almost out of the orbit of Jupiter before coming back around
and skims by the sun's broiling surface at a distance of just over 5 million kilometers
3 million miles every time the comet makes its trip close to the Sun astronomers like
to watch it and see how much material it loses to our star as it heats up when comets lose too
much of the ice that helps hold their bodies together they can begin to disintegrate rather
quickly during its last pass by the sun in 2010 21 astronomers took some snapshots of the Comet
before it made its approach with the massive Subaru telescope in the mountains of Japan
it appeared active and bright during this time and measured around 200 meters across but when
it emerged after its approach a few months later the comet had gone through some changes its tail
was much longer and narrower a Telltale sign of some disintegration and images from Hubble
showed that it was missing some significant chunks with two massive pieces that measured
around 40 meters across broken off from the main body luckily for us none of these objects pose
any real threat to Earth but that's not the case for every object that astronomers have discovered
the sun gives us all the light and energy that we need on Earth but sometimes that light can
hide some dangerous objects from being found astronomers working with the dark energy camera at
the serrero tololo inter-american observatory in Chile recently spotted three near-earth asteroids
that were previously hidden by the glare from the Sun these asteroids orbit the sun within
the orbits of Earth and Venus and were spotted during the brief Twilight window when the Sun's
light wasn't as blinding among the three one of them poses the most significant threat to Earth
than any other celestial object found in the past eight years named 2022 ap7 this asteroid measured
approximately one and a half kilometers wide nine tenths of a mile and scientists are worried
that its orbit might bring it in the path of the Earth in the future asteroids of this size have
been dubbed Planet Killers by scientists because of the amount of damage expected if one of these
hits the planet head on what are we going to do of a large asteroid is heading our Direction well
right now we can't do anything we don't have a mitigation strategy in place Charles Bowden the
NASA Chief said the best defense we have against Allah's asteroid impact is currently prayer
it's not a guarantee that the orbit of this asteroid will guide it to the earth scientists
have determined that it crosses the Earth's orbit while the Earth is quite far away however
that doesn't mean that its orbit can't change for the worst under certain conditions another
close by asteroid or Comet could easily alter the orbit of 2022 ap7 and put it in direct path
with the Earth but for now it does not appear that it will strike at any time in the near
future but this asteroid is only one of nearly a thousand near-earth objects that astronomers
have measured to be over a kilometer wide these asteroids compose a grave threat to
the Earth if one comes into the planet's path if one of these Planet Killers do fall into the
path of the earth there would be another mass extinction event that our planet has not seen
for millions of years thanks for watching are you worried that another asteroid will
come into the path of the Earth or do you think scientists will be able to find a way to protect
our planet from danger like this, let us know in the comments below. See you next time on Matter!