Our Solar System is home to over one million asteroids.
Some have predictable orbits, moving elliptically around a planet. Others behave more erratically.
Illustration by Katherine Cain courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Take 2021 PH27, for example.
The newly-discovered asteroid is currently zipping along an uneven path, completing one trip around the sun in just 113 days.
Like other asteroids, it could help us unlock the mysteries of the early Solar System — if we can catch up to it.
“2021 PH27 gets so close to the Sun that its surface temperature gets to around 900 degrees Fahrenheit at closest approach, hot enough to melt lead.”
Scott S. Sheppard, astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science who first spotted 2021 PH27
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Researchers say the asteroid was probably dislodged from the asteroid belt and formed a new — albeit weird — orbit due to the gravitational pull of planets in the inner Solar System.
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Like other asteroids, the turbocharged space rock is a remnant from the early days of the Solar System — and remains a source of mystery for researchers.
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
Recent efforts, like NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu, provide new insights into the time when these artifacts formed billions of years ago.