Near-Earth asteroid detected
29 Sep 2010 by Evoluted New Media
Pan-STARRS PS1 – a powerful telescope with a 1400 megapixel camera to image the night sky – has discovered its first potentially hazardous asteroid.
Pan-STARRS PS1 – a powerful telescope with a 1400 megapixel camera to image the night sky – has discovered its first potentially hazardous asteroid.
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| Two images of 2010 ST3 (circled in green) taken by PS1 on the night of Sept. 16 show the asteroid moving against the background field of stars and galaxies Credit PS1SC |
The asteroid – 2010 ST3 – was photographed on 16th September 20 million miles away from the Earth, but scientists believe it will be just 4 million miles away from Earth come mid-October and may even hit the Earth in 2098.
“Although this particular object won’t hit Earth in the immediate future, it’s discovery shows that Pan-STARRS is now the most sensitive system dedicated to discovering potentially dangerous asteroids,” said Dr Robert Jedicke, a University of Hawaii at Mãnoa member of PS1.
“This object was discovered when it was too far away to be detected by other asteroid surveys,” he continued, “There is a very slight possibility that ST3 will hit Earth in 2098, so it is definitely worth watching.”
Most of the large potentially hazardous objects (PHO) have already been catalogued, but scientists believe there may be many more under a mile in diameter that haven’t been discovered. Objects the size of ST3 usually break up in the Earth’s atmosphere but the resulting blast can still devastate huge areas.
As reported in Laboratory News in August, Pan-STARRS is expected to discover tens of thousands of new asteroids every year with sufficient precision to accurately calculate their orbits around the sun. Along with three further telescopes, the project will also look for distant targets such as variable stars, supernovas and mysterious bursts from galaxies across more than half the universe.
