A distant huge asteroid could destroy Earth… Cool the planet and cause a mass extinction of species

by time news
Last Monday, astronomers announced that they had discovered an asteroid about 1.5 kilometers in size near Earth, which may collide with our planet in the distant future and cause worldwide destruction, but it is still very far away.

Most asteroids of this size were originally discovered, according to scientists, but this asteroid was so far hidden in the glare of the sun, which made it very difficult to detect.

And astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Scott Sheppard, explained that this asteroid, called AP72022, “crosses the path of the Earth, which makes it an astronomical object” of potential danger. However, Sheppard reassured that the asteroid does not currently threaten to hit the Earth, because it remains ” Too far” when it crosses our planet’s orbit.

The threat comes from the fact that the trajectory of this asteroid, like any other, will be slowly modified due to the gravitational forces exerted on it, especially from the planets. So it’s hard to make any very long-term forecasts.

And the US NOIRLab laboratories, which operates several observatories, said in a statement that this asteroid is “the largest object of potential danger on Earth that has been discovered in the past eight years.”

This near-Earth asteroid takes five years to orbit the sun, and is now millions of kilometers from Earth at its closest.

So the risk is still highly hypothetical, but in the event of a collision, an asteroid of this size would have “a devastating effect on life as we know it,” according to Scott Sheppard. In this case, the dust that would enter the atmosphere would block sunlight, cooling the planet and causing a mass extinction of species.

Thanks to the discovery of the telescope Victor M. Blanco in Chile, and the DECam instrument originally developed to study dark matter.

The results were published in the scientific journal The Astronomical Journal. Two other asteroids have been discovered in this complex and hard-to-observe region, including the closest known asteroid to the sun. But these two asteroids do not pose any danger to Earth.

About 30,000 asteroids of all sizes, including 850 asteroids with a size of one kilometer or more, have been observed near Earth.

Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in the Earth’s solar system are considered a threat to our planet, and none of them will be in the next 100 years.

But not all asteroids have been detected yet, as there remain “20 to 50” objects close to Earth to be observed, according to Scott Sheppard, who explains that “most of them are in orbits that make them difficult to find, such as those that keep them inside (the orbit) of the Earth, and make It’s hard to see because of the sun’s glare.”

And the US space agency “NASA” conducted an experimental mission at the end of last September, during which a spacecraft was pushed towards a non-dangerous asteroid, which proves that it is possible to modify its path.

This unprecedented test mission, despite its modest goal compared to the scenarios of a number of science fiction films such as “Armageden”, has launched the era of training how humanity will defend itself if an asteroid threatens life on Earth in the future.

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