Danger is always lurking in the dark. In order to recognize danger in advance, humans instinctively have a sense of crisis and readiness towards beings who will become dangers in the dark. However, it is difficult to have this awareness of the danger of sneaking up close behind the sunlight. Such an existence is an asteroid near Earth, which has been hidden from sunlight and has never been identified.
The existence of a dangerous asteroid hidden in the sunlight and approaching Earth has recently been confirmed. An international research team led by astronomer Dr. Scott Shepard of the Earth and Planet Laboratory at the Carnegie Institute of Science and Technology in the United States discovered three near-Earth asteroids hidden within the solar system and recently published them in The Astronomical Journal.
Asteroids are important objects for human space science research. Asteroids made of hard metals and rocks have long attracted attention as a potential “praise” capable of extracting rare minerals that are absent or deficient on Earth. In the distant future, it is even predicted that fuel could be extracted directly from space exploration through asteroid research.
However, the true aspect of the asteroid before these resource attributes is a “disaster”. Just like the 10km-diameter asteroid that wiped dinosaurs off the earth in the past, numerous asteroids orbiting the solar system are also a danger to humanity that you never know when they will arrive.
There are three asteroids that the research team has discovered this time, of which “2022 AP7” with a size of 1.5 km is the closest to this risk. As a result of the research team’s observations, it was confirmed that 2022 AP7 has an orbit that intersects the Earth’s orbit.
If an asteroid larger than 1km collides with Earth, such as 2022 AP7, it will create a crater over 10km and cause a disaster that can destroy civilization. This is because pollutants such as dust from asteroid impacts fill Earth’s atmosphere for many years, cooling the Earth’s temperature to extreme levels, resulting in the extinction of life. For this reason, asteroids such as 2022 AP7 are classified as “planet killer” and potentially dangerous asteroids. 2022 AP7 is the largest potentially dangerous asteroid discovered in the past eight years.
The problem is, finding a planetary killer isn’t easy. 2022 AP7 is an asteroid in the solar system that is very difficult to observe due to sunlight. In fact, there are only 25 asteroids in the same position as 2022 AP7, so their existence is shrouded in a veil.
This is because direct observation towards the sun is difficult due to the sensitivity of the space telescope for observing asteroids. To observe faint shapes within the solar system, larger and deeper observation images are required, but it is not easy due to the amount of sunlight and image distortion caused by the Earth’s atmosphere. As a result, unnoticed asteroids often collide with Earth. In 2013, an unobserved asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsky, Russia, generating a shock wave 26 to 33 times larger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb, injuring 1,500 people.
After all, to recognize a hidden risk like 2022 AP7, you need science and technology that can observe it. Currently, only the Inter-American Observatory in Chile can see asteroids obscured by sunlight from the Ultra-Sensitive Dark Energy Camera (DEC). On the other hand, astronomical circles are concerned, estimating that less than half of the asteroids in the immediate vicinity of the Earth that can cause large-scale damage due to a collision with the Earth have not been found.
By Lee In-hee, staff reporter [email protected]