It is estimated to be 1.5 kilometers wide – almost a mile – a size that astronomers classify as “planet killers” because of the damage they can cause. The rock is believed to be in the top 5% of the largest known PHAs. Called 2022 AP7, it is one of several recently discovered asteroids orbiting near Earth and Venus. The asteroid is crossing Earth’s own orbit, but there’s no need to panic just yet: experts say any potential collision probably wouldn’t happen for a few thousand years. The asteroids were spotted using the Cerro Tololo observatory in Chile and detailed in a study in the Astronomical Journal. “So far we have found two large near-Earth asteroids that are about 1 kilometer in diameter, a size we call killer planets,” said Scott S Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Earth and Planetary Laboratory. The other large asteroid has an orbit completely within the orbit of the Earth itself, so it will never trouble us. Finding asteroids in the inner Solar System is difficult because of the bright background from the sun’s glare. There are also only two 10-minute windows each night to conduct observations. Image: Big Ideas Live 2022 “Only about 25 asteroids with orbits completely inside the Earth’s orbit have been discovered to date, due to the difficulty of observing near the sun’s glare,” said Mr. Sheppard, lead author of the study. The astronomer added: “There are probably only a few NEAs (near Earth asteroids) of similar sizes to be found, and these large unknown asteroids probably have orbits that keep them inside the orbits of Earth and Venus most of the time.” In September, NASA smashed a spacecraft into a much smaller asteroid (160 meters wide) seven million miles away and managed to shift its orbit. The experiment was intended to test whether the action could be effective should Earth ever be threatened by an incoming object. The asteroid that crashed into Earth as a meteorite and wiped out the dinosaurs by igniting fires thousands of miles from its impact zone is believed to have been at least six miles (10 km) wide, but may have been as much as nine miles (15 km) across.
