A group of space rocks stays mostly inside the orbit of Earth, making them difficult to pick out in the glare of the sun—and potentially a threat to our planet
According to Greenstreet’s models, as well as others, the most likely scenario is for ꞌAylóꞌchaxnim to get tangled up with Venus sometime in the next several million years. As it zips around the sun, the rocky body is being jiggled by the gravity of Mercury and by sunlight itself, both of which can perturb its orbit, gently pushing it outward and onto a collision course withA little rock known as 2020 PH27 also may be destined to collide with Venus.
This complexity is one of the reasons scientists think it’s important to study these small bodies. But so, too, is understanding how they ended up near the sun in the first place.Most scientists suspect these sun-grazing objects originated in the main asteroid belt, the ring of rubble strewn between Mars and Jupiter. From there, however, it isn’t easy for a rock to run the gauntlet and end up so close to the sun.
“The most likely interaction with Mars is you’re going to get tossed outward, and then you’ll probably interact with Jupiter, and you’ll basically be ejected from the solar system or collide with one of the planets,” Sheppard says. “So getting pushed outward is a likely outcome, and once you interact with Jupiter, game’s over—you get tossed really hard.”
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