Fastest-orbiting asteroid in solar system discovered

[Judi Lynn]

By Mike Wall about 7 hours ago

It takes asteroid 2021 PH27 just 113 Earth days to complete a lap around the sun.



Artist's illustration of the newfound asteroid 2021 PH27 (foreground), which orbits the sun
every 113 Earth days. That's faster than any other known solar system object except the
planet Mercury (seen here below and to the left of 2021 PH27).
(Image credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva (Spaceengine))

A newfound asteroid zips around the sun faster than any of its known kin.

The space rock, known as 2021 PH27, completes one lap around our star every 113 Earth days, its discoverers determined. That's the shortest orbital period of any known solar system object except the planet Mercury, which takes just 88 days to loop around the sun.

However, 2021 PH27 travels on a much more elliptical path than Mercury does and therefore gets considerably closer to the sun — about 12.4 million miles (20 million kilometers) at closest approach, compared to 29 million miles (47 million km) for the solar system's innermost planet.

"The comet might have been a spectacular sight to civilizations across Eurasia and North Africa at the end of the Stone Age," NASA officials wrote in a statement. But coming to this conclusion — absent any written or pictorial records of the celestial visitor — took some scientific sleuthing.

More:
https://www.space.com/weird-comet-atlas-breaku-hubble-telescope-analysis?utm_source=notification

[Fullduplexxx]

1. Weird ... last paragraph is the same from an article about comet atlas

The comet might have been a spectacular sight to civilizations across Eurasia and North Africa at the end of the Stone Age," NASA officials wrote in a statement. But coming to this conclusion — absent any written or pictorial records of the celestial visitor — took some scientific sleuthing.
From https://democraticunderground.com/122877746