`Planet Killer` a huge asteroid that crosses the Earth's orbit and threatens to collide with it

Weather of Arabia - Astronomers have discovered a huge asteroid called "planet killer", referring to its orbit that may one day put it on the path of colliding with Earth , although it is difficult to determine exactly when that might happen.

The asteroid called "2022 AP7" was found among 3 asteroids close to Earth, "hiding" in the inner solar system, which is the region located within the orbits of Earth and Venus, where astronomers have difficulty finding asteroids in this region due to the intense glare of the sun, and with They were able to detect this trio due to favorable conditions during a short period of twilight.

Scientists succeeded in discovering asteroids using the dark energy camera installed on the Victor M Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tolo Inter American Observatory in Chile, as part of a program of the US National Science Foundation.

"Our aurora survey scours the region within the orbits of Earth and Venus in search of asteroids," said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Earth and Planetary Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science and lead author of the study .

The team says that the asteroid 2022 AP7 is the largest dangerous asteroid discovered since 2014, with a diameter ranging between 1.1 km and 2.3 km, and any asteroid larger than 1 km is considered fatal to planets.

How dangerous is this collision?

Sheppard explained: If such an object collides with the Earth, the effect will be devastating to life as we know it, with the release of dust and pollutants into the atmosphere that will remain for years, and then the surface of the Earth is likely to cool significantly due to the veil of sunlight that does not reach the planet, and it will be an event A mass extinction like it has not been seen on Earth for millions of years."

While the discovery of the dangerous asteroid may bring to mind the scene of the asteroid "Armageddon" in the movie Don't Look Up, the study spoke specifically about the possibility of the asteroid "2022 AP7" colliding with Earth, at a time it was not able to determine it.

"The asteroid doesn't have a chance to hit Earth right now," Sheppard says, noting that at the moment AP7 crosses Earth's orbit when Earth is far away on the far side of the sun.

He continued: Slowly, and over time, the asteroid will begin to cross the Earth's orbit near where our planet is. But he said, "This will be centuries in the future and we don't know the asteroid's orbit with enough precision to say much about its dangers centuries from now."

He added that it might be possible to use multiple effects similar to the "Dart" probe to slightly alter the asteroid's path every time an asteroid threatens to collide with Earth.

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