An international group of scientists has announced the discovery of asteroid 2022 AP7. The object is about 1.5 kilometers wide and is very close to the earth’s orbit.
According to scientists, the object is relatively close to our planet, but is not likely to hit our surface.
It earned the nickname “destroyer of planets” due to its enormous size and high destructive capacity in case of impact with a larger body.
In the image, an illustration of an asteroid. Currently, China and the United States have interplanetary defense systems to detect and deflect asteroids on a potential collision course with Earth.
The discovery was made through the Victor M. Blanco telescope, in Chile, which is part of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
“2022 AP7 passes through Earth’s orbit, making it a potentially dangerous asteroid, but it is currently not on a trajectory that collides with Earth, now or in the future,” said the study’s lead author Carnegie Institution for Science. declaration.
Despite the moderate risk of the phenomenon, scientists believe this is “the largest potentially dangerous object for the Earth discovered in the past eight years”. And it is precisely from this great capacity for destruction that scientists have derived the nickname ‘killer of planets’ or ‘destroyer of planets’. However, the risk is not as high as a ‘Don’t look up’ from real life.
It is worth mentioning that NASA recently conducted a test of the DART mission, which focused on the probes’ ability to alter the path of asteroids and meteors. According to the US space agency, the project was successful and interplanetary threats can be deflected by our current technology.
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