Twilight observations spot three large near-Earth objects lurking in the inner Solar System. Astronomers have spotted three near-Earth asteroids (NEA) hiding in the glare of the Sun thanks to twilight observations with the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at Cerro Tololo Inte
Twilight observations with the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at NOIRLab’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile have enabled astronomers to spot three near-Earth asteroids hiding in the glare of the Sun. These NEAs are part of an elusive population that lurks inside the orbits of Earth and Venus. One of the asteroids is the largest object that is potentially hazardous to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years.
“There are likely only a few NEAs with similar sizes left to find, and these large undiscovered asteroids likely have orbits that keep them interior to the orbits of Earth and Venus most of the time,” said Sheppard. “Only about 25 asteroids with orbits completely within Earth’s orbit have been discovered to date because of the difficulty of observing near the glare of the Sun.”
As well as detecting asteroids that could potentially pose a threat to Earth, this research is an important step toward understanding the distribution of small bodies in our Solar System. Asteroids that are further from the Sun than Earth are the easiest to detect. Because of that these more-distant asteroids tend to dominate current theoretical models of the asteroid population.
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