https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgq2lcpkifg
Thousands of unprecedented asteroids roar around the solar system, among millions of distant stars and galaxies captured in the first images released from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
“These two beautiful galaxies were photographically bombed by asteroids,” he said. željko Ivezić During a press briefing on June 23rd at Washington University in Seattle, we present images showing several asteroids striped past two spiral-armed galaxies.
While observing just 10 hours of night sky, the telescope, located in clear air at the top of a mountain in the Chilean desert, captured the previously unknown 2104. Of these, seven are in trajectories passing near the Earth, but none poses a risk of hitting us, Ivezic said.
Researchers identified and tracked newly discovered asteroids in images taken over 10 hours
NSF-DOEVERA C. Rubin Observatory
Telescopes are not primarily designed to detect objects near Earth, but are designed to conduct a decade-long study that expands the views of the universe as a whole. However, the same quality that serves its purpose is also suitable for asteroid detection. “You need to scan the sky very quickly with a very large field of view,” Ivezic said.
Asteroids were identified by scanning areas in the same sky and paying attention to what was moving. In the compound image of Ivezić displayed during the briefing, the asteroids appeared as colored stripes on the background of bright objects in deeper space. This gives you better photos of the planet’s neighbours and their inhabitants. “They weren’t surprised,” he said. “There’s an exquisite simulation.”
Over the course of a decade of research, the telescope is expected to detect around 5 million new asteroids, suspending the number identified in previous centuries of searches.
The asteroid is marked with a colored dot in front of the image of a galaxy visible in the southern sky
NSF-DOE VERA C. RUBIN OBSERVATORATORY Copyright: NSF-DOEVERA C. Rubin Observatory
The new detections are reported daily to the US Minor Planet Center to analyze orbital trajectories and identify objects that could pose a threat to the Earth. “In less than 24 hours, everyone in the world will know that there are certain objects that can be dangerous,” Ivezic says.
Matthew Payne The Minor Planet Center states that there is only an estimated 40% of Earth objects that are close enough to pose a threat. A fundamental increase in the number of detections from the Vera Rubin observatory will help you find the rest of them quickly, he says.
A significant increase in observations of other objects in the solar system – from the main belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter to objects that emerge more beyond Neptune’s orbit – is expected to provide new insights into our direct universe neighbourhood. “It’s roughly going to revolutionise solar system science,” Payne says.
topic:
