Posted on 08/23/2021 8:56:49 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A newfound asteroid zips around the sun faster than any of its known kin.
The space rock, known as 2021 PH27, completes one lap around our star every 113 Earth days, its discoverers determined. That's the shortest orbital period of any known solar system object except the planet Mercury, which takes just 88 days to loop around the sun.
However, 2021 PH27 travels on a much more elliptical path than Mercury does and therefore gets considerably closer to the sun — about 12.4 million miles (20 million kilometers) at closest approach, compared to 29 million miles (47 million km) for the solar system's innermost planet.
2021 PH27 will likely collide with the sun, Mercury or Venus a few million years from now, if it's not ejected from its current path by a gravitational interaction first, team members said.
2021 PH27 was first spotted on Aug. 13 by astronomers using the Dark Energy Camera (DEC), a powerful multipurpose instrument mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
The team was able to pin down the asteroid's orbit over the next few days, thanks to further observations by the DEC and the Magellan Telescopes at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, as well as smaller scopes in Chile and South Africa operated by the Las Cumbres Observatory.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
That is a weird orbit
**2021 PH27 will likely collide with the sun, Mercury or Venus a few million years from now, if it’s not ejected from its current path by a gravitational interaction first, team members said.**
A few million years? What is a few? 5,10,20?
Oh well they seem to be more sure of things than Fauxzi.
Ludicrous
article says it is “the fastest”, but never says how fast...
The earth orbits the sun at 67,000 miles per hour...
The earth rotates on it’s axis at 1,000 miles per hour...
...and our sun travels through our galaxy at 450,000 miles per hour...
How Fast Are You Moving When You Are Sitting Still?
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https://astrosociety.org/file_download/inline/d1394916-a529-4107-9cb1-a0e3f3a76bf5
Only at the equator.
Regards,
1,000 miles an hour at the equator. It would only go about 60 feet in 24 hours at a point 10 feet south of the rotational center at the geographic north pole. No?
The peak orbital speed of this asteroid relative to the Sun is about 130,000 mph at its closest approach to the Sun (as somebody already posted, the earth has an average orbital speed of about 67,000 mph, according to a reference I consulted it is 66,615 mph). At its furthest point the asteroid is still closer than the earth so it would “slow down” to around 75,000 mph then, a bit slower than Venus which maintains a forward speed of about 78,337 mph. Mercury has a more elliptical orbit than Venus (or Earth) and its speed would vary from about 95,000 to 115,000 mph (the average is 107,082 mph).
Venus travels 72% of the distance the earth travels in about 63% of the time so it is going (72/63) as fast as the earth (or 8/7). Mercury travels 40% of the distance in 23% of the time so it is going (40/23) as fast, about 1.7 times our speed.
This asteroid travels about half the distance we do, in roughly 30% of a year, so it averages 1.6 times our speed. Its average is close to 100,000 mph (relative to the Sun). Light goes that far in about half a second.
The speed varies according to Kepler’s laws. It moves faster the closer it gets.
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