A Deep and Wide Twilight Survey for Asteroids Interior to Earth and Venus

TL;DR

This survey using twilight observations with the Dark Energy Camera has discovered rare asteroids interior to Earth's orbit, including the smallest semi-major axis asteroid and the largest Potentially Hazardous Asteroid in recent years, enhancing understanding of near-Earth object populations.

Contribution

The paper reports the first discoveries of Atira/Apohele asteroids and a new large PHA interior to Earth's orbit, providing new data on these elusive populations.

Findings

Discovered two rare Atira/Apohele asteroids, 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27.

Detected one new large Apollo-type NEO, 2022 AP7.

Survey covered 624 square degrees near Venus' orbit, reaching 21.3-22 mag in r-band.

Abstract

We are conducting a survey using twilight time on the Dark Energy Camera with the Blanco 4m telescope in Chile to look for objects interior to Earth's and Venus' orbits. To date we have discovered two rare Atira/Apohele asteroids, 2021 LJ4 and 2021 PH27, which have orbits completely interior to Earth's orbit. We also discovered one new Apollo type Near Earth Object (NEO) that crosses Earth's orbit, 2022 AP7. Two of the discoveries likely have diameters greater than 1 km. 2022 AP7 is likely the largest Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) discovered in about eight years. To date we have covered 624 square degrees of sky near to and interior to the orbit of Venus. The average images go to 21.3 mags in the r-band, with the best images near 22nd mag. Our new discovery 2021 PH27 has the smallest semi-major axis known for an asteroid, 0.4617 au, and the largest general relativistic effects (53 arcseconds/century) known for any body in the Solar System. The survey has detected about 15 percent of all known Atira NEOs. We put strong constraints on any stable population of Venus co-orbital resonance objects existing, as well as the Atira and Vatira asteroid classes. These interior asteroid populations are important to complete the census of asteroids near Earth, including some of the most likely Earth impactors that cannot easily be discovered in other surveys. Comparing the actual population of asteroids found interior to Earth and Venus with those predicted to exist by extrapolating from the known population exterior to Earth is important to better understand the origin, composition and structure of the NEO population.