The new asteroid 2021 PH27 completes a full revolution around the Sun in 113 days and converges with a star at a distance of 20
The asteroid was discovered on August 13 by an astrophysicist fromCarnegie Scott Sheppard Institute, after which scientists calculated its trajectory and found that its orbit is elliptical, its semimajor axis or greatest radius is only 70 million km.
While the orbit is movingThe asteroid crosses the orbits of both Venus and Mercury. 2021 PH27 moves faster than all previously discovered asteroids, it is second in speed only to Mercury with a revolution of 88 days.
Due to such a strong approach to the Sunthe asteroid heats up to 480°C. The authors also found that its orbit may be unstable and because of this, over the next few million years it will either fall into the Sun, Mercury or Venus, or end up in other distant regions of the Galaxy.
There are several theories about the origin of the asteroid:
- First, it was part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter,
- Second, it is the degenerate nucleus of a comet, which has spent all the volatiles.
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