Welcome to Brainstuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff, laurin voge obamb here as fighter pilots in World Wars one and two were acutely aware attacking an enemy aircraft from the direction of the Sun was a very effective tactic to catch your target by surprise. The glare of sunlight provided cover until it was too late for the
opponent to react. While asteroids don't consciously have this tactic in mind, we hope astronomers are extremely mindful that the Sun maybe hiding a cache of undiscovered and potentially hazard as asteroids within its glare. This concern was highlighted by the July announcement that is surprisingly big asteroid with the shortest known year was discovered by this wiki transient facility,
a powerful camera at the Palomar Observatory in California. The asteroid, designated nine l F six, is point six miles or one kilometer wide and orbits the Sun entirely inside Earth's orbit. It completes one orbit every one hundred and fifty one
Earth days. It zooms from within the orbit of Mercury, which orbits the Sun every eighty eight days, to as far out as Venus, which has a two twenty five day orbit in a wonky trajectory that flings it out of the orbital plane in the process, a sign that it was once gravitationally disturbed by one of the two planets in the past. This rare space rock belongs to a very exclusive group of asteroids known as Tira asteroids, which orbit the Sun closer than Earth. There are only
twenty known to exist. The fact that they fly between us and the Sun makes them uniquely difficult objects to detect, but even for an a Tira asteroid, l F six didn't make it easy. Most asteroids of its size have already been found, but it's unique orbit evaded decades of organized searches. Asteroid l F six was detected as part
of the Twilight Campaign. As the name suggests, the best time to observe asteroids such as these is during the short period of twilight, just after sunset but before dark.
The campaign, which was developed by researchers at the National Central University in Taiwan, discovered another a Tira asteroid designated twenty nine a Q three in January of a Q three has a one d and sixty five day orbit around the Sun in addition these, Wiki transient facility has identified around two thousand asteroids living in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, plus an impressive hall of one hundred Near Earth objects or n e o s,
which are commons and asteroids whose orbits bring them within relatively close proximity to Earth. In addition to the Twilight campaign, a proposed NASA spacecraft called the Near Earth Object Camera or NEOCam, will also be able to study the inner Solar System for more A Tira asteroids by seeking out their heat signature. We spoke with George Hallow, a researcher at Caltech and memory of the discovery team. He said, because A Tira asteroids are closer to the Sun and
warmer than other asteroids, they're brighter in the infrared. Neo CAM has the double advantage of its location in space and its infrared capability to find these asteroids more easily than telescopes working at visible wavelengths from the ground. The Near Earth objects are of particular interest because, on the optimistic end, they might potentially be future sites of landings and research. On the pessimistic end, they could possibly collide
with Earth. Since NASA began it's any O Observations program. The agency estimates that it's discovered more than of near Earth asteroids measuring point six miles or one kilometer and larger. While l F six has been classified as a near Earth asteroid and is therefore part of a dwindling group of undiscovered objects of this size, it's not considered a threat to Earth. Simulations of its future orbits indicate no
eminent likelihood of a future collision. However, it is a reminder that these substantial asteroids are still out there, and projects like these Wiki Transient Facility can probe The Inner Solar System or the Sun may be hiding them. So for now, while Earth is safe from being smashed by large space that could cause global damage, astronomers are on high alert to ensure that we won't get blindsided by the glare of the Sun. Today's episode was written by
Dr Ian O'Neill and produced by Tyler clay. A Brainstuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of other probably safe topics, visit our home planet how stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts for my heart radio, visit i Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.