Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, November 2 (Xinhua) recent observations using a dark energy camera made by the US Department of Energy at the Cerro Tololo American Observatory in Chile have enabled astronomers to discover three near-Earth asteroids (NEA) hidden in the sun, Sciencedaily reported. These near-Earth asteroids are part of an elusive group of asteroids lurking in the orbits of Earth and Venus, one of which is the largest potentially dangerous object discovered in the past eight years.

Using the dark energy camera (DECam) installed on the V í ctor M. Blanco 4m Telescope at the Inter-American Observatory in Cerro Tololo, Chile, an international team has discovered three new near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) hidden in the interior of the solar system, the inner regions of Earth and Venus orbit. This is a notoriously challenging observation area because the camera has to struggle with the sun's glare.

However, by taking advantage of brief and favorable observation conditions at dusk, astronomers have discovered three elusive near-Earth asteroids. One of them is a 1.5km wide asteroid called 2022 AP7, which may one day orbit Earth. The other two asteroids, called 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27, can safely remain in the interior of Earth's orbit. Of particular interest to astronomers and astrophysicists is that 2021 PH27 is the known closest asteroid to the sun. Therefore, in any object in the solar system, it has the greatest general relativistic effect, and in its orbit, its surface will be hot enough to melt lead.

CTOnews.com learned that finding asteroids in the interior of the solar system is a daunting observational challenge. Astronomers have only two brief 10-minute windows to observe the area every night and must struggle with the bright background sky caused by the sun's bright light. In addition, such observations are very close to the horizon, which means that astronomers must observe through the thick Earth's atmosphere, which may blur and distort their observations.

Despite these challenges, the discovery of these three new asteroids is due to DECam's unique observational ability. This state-of-the-art instrument is one of the highest-performing wide-area CCD imagers in the world, enabling astronomers to observe large areas of the sky with extremely high sensitivity. Astronomers call observations that capture weak objects "depth" observations. The ability to capture both deep and wide-area observations is indispensable when hunting asteroids in Earth's orbit. DECam, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), was built and tested at Fermi Lab in DOE.

In addition to detecting asteroids that may pose a threat to Earth, this study is also an important step in understanding the distribution of small and medium-sized objects in the solar system. Asteroids farther from the sun than the earth are the easiest to detect. Because of this, these distant asteroids tend to dominate the current theoretical models of asteroid groups.

Exploring these objects also allows astronomers to understand how asteroids operate within the entire solar system and how gravity and the sun's heat contribute to their fragmentation.

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