Asteroid paling berbahaya yang diketahui umat manusia tahun lalu tidak akan menabrak Bumi setidaknya selama 100 tahun
Dampak dikesampingkan pada tahun 2052 karena Badan Antariksa Eropa (ESA) memulai hitungan mundur ke Hari Asteroid
Tepat pada waktunya untuk Hari Asteroid Sedunia: batu ruang angkasa yang terancam yang telah berada di urutan teratas daftar risiko di seluruh dunia selama berbulan-bulan, dengan peluang nyata menghantam Bumi pada 2 April 2052. Sekarang, tim asteroid Badan Antariksa Eropa sedang bekerja dengan para ahli di Observatorium Eropa Selatan ([{” attribute=””>ESO) has officially removed ‘2021 QM1’ from their asteroid risk list, a result of skilled observations and analysis of the faintest asteroid ever observed with one of the most sensitive telescopes ever constructed.
With Asteroid Day Live 2022 set for June 30, we can safely say that the riskiest asteroid known to humankind in the last year will not impact the Earth – at least not for the next century.
What was it like to track this asteroid? Get the full story in ESA’s fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how European experts handle asteroid risks in the official countdown to Asteroid Day live on June 30, airing at 10:25 CEST on AsteroidDay.org and via ESA WebTV.
Impact 2052
2021 QM1 was first discovered on August 28, 2021, by the Mount Lemmon Observatory, located north of Tucson, Arizona. At the beginning, nothing stood out as unusual about the discovery – about a dozen new near-Earth asteroids are identified every dark night. Routine follow-up observations were subsequently acquired from telescopes around the globe, but these began to tell a more worrying story.
“These early observations gave us more information about the asteroid’s path, which we then projected into the future,” said Richard Moissl, ESA’s Head of Planetary Defense.
“We could see its future paths around the Sun, and in 2052 it could come dangerously close to Earth. The more the asteroid was observed, the greater that risk became.”
Penting untuk dicatat bahwa perhitungan orbital berdasarkan hanya beberapa malam pengamatan tunduk pada beberapa ketidakpastian, itulah sebabnya asteroid sering ditambahkan ke daftar risiko ESA segera setelah ditemukan dan kemudian dihapus setelah lebih banyak data dikumpulkan, dan ketidakpastian mengurangi kepastian. , dan asteroid itu terbukti aman. Pada kesempatan ini, ini tidak mungkin.
Penyelarasan kosmik yang tidak menguntungkan
Sama seperti bahaya yang tampaknya meningkat, keselarasan kosmik yang sempurna terjadi: jalur asteroid membawanya lebih dekat ke Matahari seperti yang terlihat dari Bumi, yang tidak dapat dilihat selama beberapa bulan oleh cahaya terang bintang induk kita.
“Kami hanya harus menunggu,” jelas Marco Micheli, astronom dari Pusat Koordinasi Objek Dekat Bumi (NEOCC) Badan Antariksa Eropa.
“Tetapi untuk menghentikannya, kami mengetahui bahwa 2021 QM1 juga bergerak menjauh dari Bumi dalam orbitnya saat ini—yang berarti bahwa pada saat ia menghilang dari sinar matahari, mungkin terlalu redup untuk dideteksi.”
Sambil menunggu, mereka bersiap.
Akses prioritas ke salah satu teleskop paling kuat di Bumi
Observatorium Selatan Eropa Teleskop Sangat Besar (VLT) Itu sudah siap dan siap. Setelah asteroid setinggi 50 meter menjauh dari sinar matahari — dan kondisi cuaca memungkinkan — VLT ESO akan memfokuskan cermin 8 meternya pada bebatuan yang menghilang.
“Kami memiliki jendela pendek untuk mengamati asteroid berbahaya kami,” jelas Olivier Hainaut, astronom di ESO.
“Untuk memperburuk keadaan, itu melewati area langit dengan[{” attribute=””>Milky Way just behind. Our small, faint, receding asteroid would have to be found against a backdrop of thousands of stars. These would turn out to be some of the trickiest asteroid observations we have ever made”.
Faintest asteroid ever observed
Over the night of May 24, ESO’s VLT took a series of new images. The data arrived and Olivier and Marco began to process them, stacking subsequent observations on top of each other and removing the background stars: it took some time.
The result? A positive detection of the faintest asteroid ever observed. With a magnitude of 27 on the scale used by astronomers to describe the brightness of objects in the sky, 2021 QM1 was 250 million times fainter than the faintest stars visible to the naked eye from a dark spot. (In this astronomical scale of visible magnitudes, the brighter an object appears the lower the value of its magnitude, while the brightest objects reach negative values, e.g. the Sun is magnitude -27).
Olivier was certain this small blur was in fact an asteroid, and Marco was certain that given its location, it was our asteroid.
Safe at last?
With these new observations, our risky asteroid’s path was refined, ruling out an impact in 2052, and 2021 QM1 was removed from ESA’s risk list. Another 1,377 remain.
More than one million asteroids have been discovered in the Solar System, almost 30 000 of which pass near Earth, with many more expected to be out there. ESA’s Planetary Defence Office, NEOCC and astronomers around the globe are looking up to keep us safe, working together to ensure we know well in advance if an asteroid is discovered on a collision course.
Watch Asteroid Day Live
How worried are the world’s asteroid experts? How did it feel to track humankind’s most risky asteroid? Get the full story in ESA’s 30-minute program counting down to Asteroid Day live on June 30, airing at 10:25 CEST on AsteroidDay.org and on ESA WebTV.
Asteroid Day is the United Nations-sanctioned day of public awareness of the risks of asteroid impacts, held annually on June 30. This year sees its return to Luxembourg for an in-person event following two years of living entirely in the virtual realm. Asteroid experts from ESA, from across Europe and worldwide will converge on the city to take part in a packed four-hour live program of panels and one-on-one interviews.
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