NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC / AURA /R. Proctor
A model of the inner solar system showing the asteroids discovered by Rubin in light teal, with the already known asteroids in dark blue.
In an “unprecedented” survey, thousands of new asteroids were detected, including hundreds of “distant worlds” located beyond the orbit of Neptune and 33 previously unknown near-Earth objects.
Researchers from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Department of Energy, submitted an “unprecedented set of asteroid detections” to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, the foundation announced.
The organism functions, in practice, as a reference center for data on the location of minor planets. According to the NSF, this is the largest single batch of asteroid discoveries presented last year.
The discoveries result from about a million observations of more than 11 thousand new asteroids and more than 80 thousand already known asteroids, carried out over a period of month and a half.
Among these celestial bodies are also “some that had already been observed previously, but which then they had been ‘lost’because their orbits were too uncertain to predict their future locations,” explained the NSF in .
Among the new submissions are 33, or NEOs, previously unknown. These are celestial bodies “whose closest approach to the Sun is less than 1.3 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun,” the foundation added.
Asteroids are small rocky bodies remnants of the formation of the solar system, which occurred around 4.6 billion years ago. They are concentrated especially in the main asteroid beltwhich is located around the Sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
So-called near-Earth objects are asteroids whose orbits take them to pass less than 195 million km from the Sun and entering the Earth’s “orbital neighborhood”.
According to the NSF, none of the NEOs now discovered pose a threat to Earth, with the largest is about 500 meters wide.
Objects measuring more than 140 meters in diameter are subject to monitoring tight due to the “significant regional damage” it could cause in the event of an impact. Even so, “only about 40% of these NEO of intermediate size have been identified so far”, explained the foundation.
As stated Mario Juricchief solar system scientist at the Rubin Observatory and an astronomer at the University of Washington, in one of the university, “this first major submission after the Rubin First Look is just the tip of the iceberg and shows that the observatory is ready.”
“Discoveries that previously took years or decades If it comes to fruition, Rubin will do it in months. We are beginning to fulfill Rubin’s promise to profoundly reshape our solar system inventory and open the door to discoveries we haven’t even imagined yet,” he added.
According to the NSF, the Rubin Observatory is expected to discover, in the future, approximately 90 thousand new near-Earth objectssome of which “may be potentially dangerous”, which almost doubles the number of known NEOs larger than 200 meters.
“By enabling early detection and continuous monitoring of these objects, Rubin It will be a powerful tool for the,” the NSF concluded.
