Impact in 2052 ruled out as European Space Agency (ESA) counts down to Asteroid Day
Just in time for World Asteroids Day: A menacing space rock has remained at the top of the danger lists around the world for months, with a real chance of hitting Earth on April 2, 2052. Now, ESA’s asteroid team is working with experts on the European South The Observatory (ESO) has officially removed “2021 QM1” from the list of asteroid hazards, the result of specialized observations and analysis of the weakest asteroid ever observed with one of the most sensitive telescopes ever built. With Asteroid Day Live 2022 set for June 30, we can safely say that the most dangerous asteroid known to mankind in the last year will not hit Earth – at least not for the next century. What was it like watching this asteroid? Check out the full story in ESA’s fascinating background on how European experts handle asteroid hazards in the official Asteroid Day countdown on June 30, broadcast at 10:25 CEST on AsteroidDay.org and via ESA WebTV. Asteroid 2021 QM1, once thought to have hit Earth in 2052, was spotted passing through a region of the sky with the Galaxy just behind it. The small, faint, receding asteroid had to be found with a background of thousands of stars, with red crosses showing the course of the object. Credit: ESO / O. Hainaut
Impact 2052
The 2021 QM1 was first discovered on August 28, 2021, by Mount Lemmon Observatory, north of Tucson, Arizona. At first, nothing so unusual stood out about the discovery – about a dozen new asteroids near Earth are spotted every dark night. The usual observational observations were then obtained from telescopes around the world, but these began to tell a more disturbing story. “These early observations gave us more information about the asteroid’s course, which we then projected into the future,” said Richard Moissl, ESA’s Chief of Planetary Defense. “We could see its future paths around the Sun and in 2052 it could approach the Earth dangerously. “The more the asteroid was observed, the greater this risk.” It is important to note that orbit calculations based on only a few nights of observation are subject to some uncertainty, which is why asteroids are often added to the ESA endangered list as soon as they are discovered and then subtracted as more data is collected, uncertainties shrink. and the asteroid is proven to be safe. In this case, this was not possible.
Unfortunate cosmic alignment
As the danger seemed to increase, a (a) perfect cosmic alignment occurred: the asteroid’s orbit brought it closer to the Sun as seen from Earth, and for months it became impossible to see it due to the bright glow of our host star. 2021 The orbit of QM1 as it passed closer to the Sun in the sky as seen from Earth, immediately after its discovery. Credit: ESA “We just had to wait,” said Marco Micheli, an astronomer at ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center (NEOCC). “But to put it bluntly, we knew that 2021 QM1 was also moving away from Earth in its current orbit – meaning that once it left the Sun’s glow, it could be too faint to detect.” As long as they waited, they prepared.
Priority access to one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth
The Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory was prepared and ready. As soon as the 50-meter asteroid came out of the sunlight – and if and when the weather allowed – ESO’s VLT would focus its 8-meter mirror on the disappearing rock. Dramatic sunset of the moon behind ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), Chile. As the full moon sets, the Sun is about to rise on the opposite horizon. The Very Large Telescope (VLT) has already closed its eyes after a long night of observations and telescope operators and astronomers are asleep while technicians, engineers and day astronomers are waking up for a new day of work. Operations never stop at the world’s most productive astronomical observatory. Credit: G.Gillet / ESO “We had a short window to locate our dangerous asteroid,” explained ESO astronomer Olivier Hainaut. “To make matters worse, he was passing through an area of the sky with the Galaxy just behind him. Our small, faint, receding asteroid should be found with a background of thousands of stars. “These will prove to be some of the most difficult asteroid observations we have ever made.”
The faintest asteroid ever observed
On the night of May 24, ESO’s VLT took a series of new images. The data arrived and Olivier and Marco began to process it, stacking the following observations on top of each other and removing the background stars: it took a while. ESO’s Very Large Telescope records the 2021 QM1 which for months topped the danger lists worldwide. This pivotal observation ruled out a collision with Earth in 2052. On the night of May 24, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope captured a series of images of an asteroid that had been at the top of danger lists around the world for months. These images were some of the toughest asteroids ever taken by experts as the dim 2021 QM1 asteroid fell out of sight on a very starry background. A series of images were processed, stacked on top of each other and the stars were removed, revealing the faintest asteroid observed. Credit: ESA The result? A positive detection of the weakest asteroid ever observed. At 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 quantities, the brighter an object appears, the lower its magnitude value, while the brighter objects reach negative values, eg the Sun is magnitude -27). Olivier was sure that this little blur was actually an asteroid and Marco was sure that, given his position, he was our asteroid.
Safe at last?
With these new observations, the path of our dangerous asteroid was improved, excluding a collision in 2052 and the 2021 QM1 was removed from the ESA danger list. Another 1,377 remain. The position of each asteroid at 12:00 CEST on June 13, 2022, is planned. Each asteroid is a segment that represents its motion for 10 days. The inner bodies move faster around the Sun (yellow circle in the center). Blue represents the interior of the Solar System, home to asteroids close to Earth, the intersections of Mars, and the terrestrial planets. The main belt, between Mars and Jupiter, is green. The two orange “clouds” correspond to the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter. Credit: © ESA / Gaia / DPAC; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, Thanks: P. Tanga (Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur) More than a million asteroids have been discovered in the Solar System, nearly 30,000 of which pass close to Earth, and many more are expected to be out there. ESA’s Office of Planetary Defense, NEOCC and astronomers around the world are looking to keep us safe, working together to ensure we know well in advance if an asteroid is discovered in the course of a collision.
Watch Asteroid Day Live
How worried are the asteroid experts in the world? How did it seem to you to watch the most dangerous asteroid of mankind? Watch the full story on ESA’s 30-minute countdown to Asteroid Day live on June 30, which will air at 10:25 CEST on AsteroidDay.org and ESA WebTV. Fallen trees in Tunguska, Imperial Russia, appeared in 1929, 15 km from the epicenter of an aerial eruption caused by a meteorite eruption in 1908. Offer: Photo by NA Setrukov, 1928 Asteroid Day is a United Nations-approved public awareness day on the dangers of asteroid impact, which takes place every year on June 30. This year he returns to Luxembourg for a personal event after two years of living entirely in the virtual space. Asteroid experts from ESA, from all over Europe and around the world will flock to the city to participate in a full four-hour live program with panel and one-on-one interviews.
