The fastest asteroid in the Solar System has been discovered at NOIRLab’s CTIO using the powerful 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) in Chile — the Sun’s new nearest neighbor. Astronomers just ten days ago discovered an asteroid with the fastest orbital period of any known asteroid in the Solar System. The orbit of the approximately 1-kilometer-diameter asteroid takes it as close as 20 million kilometers (12 million miles or 0.13 au), from the Sun every 113 days. This artist’s rendering shows the asteroid (above) and the planet Mercury (below).

NOIRLab: Fastest Orbiting Asteroid Discovered at Cerro Tololo

Using the powerful 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) in Chile, astronomers discovered an asteroid with the shortest orbital period of ...
NOIRLab: Astronomers are Bulging with Data

NOIRLab: Astronomers are Bulging with Data

Star-studded image shows the glittering central parts of the Milky Way ...
AURA Observatory: 5th Anniversary of the First Dark Sky Sanctuary in the World

AURA Observatory: 5th Anniversary of the First Dark Sky Sanctuary in the World

Five years ago, on 9 August 2015, at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly in Honolulu, Hawai’i, the International Dark-Sky ...
Artist impression of a super nova explosion

NOIRLab: Astronomers Sink Their Teeth Into Special Supernova

Astronomers using several telescopes at NOIRLab, including the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope, have obtained critical data on a particular ...
Solar corona during a total solar eclipse

A Stroke of Astronomical Luck for Solar Science

On July 2, 2019 a total solar eclipse will pass over Chile and Argentina, and through a stroke of astronomical ...
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