Discovery of a near-Earth asteroid “hiding”…

In the distant past, our solar system witnessed a huge number of collisions between celestial bodies. Millions of space rocks were moving randomly, throwing each other around and colliding with each other. Over time, many of these rocks fused together to form the rocky planets we know today, while the remainder collected in the main asteroid belt.

But some of these space rocks are still hidden in places that are difficult to detect, including the newly discovered asteroid, which was called 2025 SC79.

This asteroid represents a real mystery to scientists. It revolves around the Sun in a complete path within Earth‘s orbit, which makes it one of the most difficult asteroids to observe. Rather, it exceeds the orbit of Venus and crosses the orbit of Mercury, in a rapid journey around the sun that takes only 128 days.

What is interesting is that this asteroid ranks third in terms of orbital speed among all known asteroids, surpassed only by two other asteroids that revolve around the sun in 115 days (for comparison, Mercury revolves around the sun in 88 days).

This asteroid is the thirty-ninth member of the rare “Atera” group, also called inner Earth objects, which is a category of near-Earth asteroids located very close to our planet.

Astronomer Scott Sheppard was able to observe the asteroid using the Blanco telescope in Chile, which has a diameter of 4 meters and is equipped with a dark energy camera. It is specially designed to detect dangerous asteroids.

The asteroid’s diameter is estimated at about 700 metres, a size that could pose a major threat if it collided with Earth.

Monitoring these asteroids is one of the difficult scientific challenges, given their proximity to the sun and the disappearance of their faint light in its bright glow. They can only be observed during short periods at dawn and dusk.

Scientists are expected to continue studying this asteroid after it returns from behind the sun, where they will investigate its composition and how it can withstand extreme heat. They will also try to understand its origin and how it reached its current orbit.

Scientists point out that understanding the movement of these asteroids and their origins not only helps protect Earth, but also reveals pages of the history of our solar system.

Source: ScienceAlert