Kilometre-size asteroid discovered orbiting Sun every 151 days - inside Earth's orbit

[gary]

In a press release today from Caltech, it is reported that :-

Originally Posted by Caltech

Astronomers have spotted an unusual asteroid with the shortest "year" known for any asteroid. The rocky body, dubbed 2019 LF6, is about a kilometer in size and circles the sun roughly every 151 days. In its orbit, the asteroid swings out beyond Venus and, at times, comes closer in than Mercury, which circles the sun every 88 days. 2019 LF6 is one of only 20 known "Atira" asteroids, whose orbits fall entirely within Earth's.

Originally Posted by Caltech

2019 LF6 was discovered via the Zwicky Transient Facility, or ZTF, a state-of-the-art camera at the Palomar Observatory that scans the skies every night for transient objects, such as exploding and flashing stars and moving asteroids. Because ZTF scans the sky so rapidly, it is well-suited for finding Atira asteroids, which have short observing windows.

"We only have about 20 to 30 minutes before sunrise or after sunset to find these asteroids," says Ye.

To find the Atira asteroids, the ZTF team has been carrying out a dedicated observing campaign, named Twilight after the time of day best suited for discovering the objects.

Story here :-
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/z...-shortest-year

The International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center listing for 2019 LF6 :-
https://minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K19/K19M45.html

[xelasnave]

Very interesting Gary. Thanks again for all the neat stuff you post.
Alex

[Wavytone]

Well at least it can't hit us.

What they're really looking for is stuff that will hit Earth from an orbit that takes the object close to the sun, where we are blind...