Unidentified asteroid that could destroy the PLANET has been seen hiding from the sun’s glare.
This space rock measures a mile in width and is the most dangerous asteroid ever detected in eight years.
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However, it was only possible to see during ten-minute twilight windows.
It was one of three close-Earth asteroids that were discovered in the inner Solar System by a team astronomers who were based at a Chilean observatory.
The orbit of the largest, 2022 AP77, may send it crashing into Earth one day.
2021 LJ4 is the other name, and 2021 PH27 is the third. They have orbits that are not considered to be a threat.
Scott S. Sheppard is an astronomer at Earth and Planets Laboratory of Carnegie Institution for Science and lead author of the paper that describes this work. He explained: “Our Twilight Survey is scouring areas within the orbits Earth and Venus for asteroids.
“We have so far found two large near-Earth asteroids measuring approximately one kilometre in size, which we call planet killers.
“There are probably only a handful of NEAs with similar sizes that remain to be found, and these large undiscovered asteroidoids most likely have orbits that keep the orbits of Earth or Venus interior.
“Only about 25 asteroids with orbits completely within Earth’s orbit have been discovered to date because of the difficulty of observing near the glare of the Sun.”