Using powerful telescopes to scan the sky, astronomers are finding about 500 new sizable space rocks in Earth's solar system neighborhood each year. Scientists are, however, keeping a close watch on 30,000 large objects (Opens in a new tab) out there and estimate there could be 15,000 or so more waiting to be discovered. There are no known asteroids on an impact course with Earth. The majority are in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but occasionally rocks get nudged into the inner solar system, relatively closer to Earth.
Most of that ancient detritus is too far away to pose a threat to this planet. They're the rocky rubble left over from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Want more science and tech news delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter today.
That's close in terms of the cosmos - space, after all, is a big place - but it's still three times farther than the moon is to Earth.Ī 2012 plot of asteroid 2011 AG5, which shows that it travels beyond the orbit of Mars and as close to the sun as halfway between Earth and Venus. It takes the asteroid about twice as long to orbit the sun as Earth and won’t have a near flyby with this planet until 2040, when it could come within 670,000 miles, according to NASA. There were no signs of King Kong clinging to the towering rock, but astronomers did make a few other observations: It has a dark charcoal color, appears to be scooped on one side, and is slowly spinning around every nine hours. The image above is a collage of six pictures taken of the long object by the Goldstone Solar System Radar (Opens in a new tab) antenna dish in California. "This is one of the most elongated we’ve seen."
ASTRO EMPIRES NEW CRACK
But that approach gave astronomers their first crack at studying its size, rotation, surface, and silhouette in detail since the object was discovered 12 years ago. The asteroid, known as 2011 AG5, zipped past Earth at a safe distance of 1.1 million miles away on Feb. (opens in a new tab) (Opens in a new tab)
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