By Katherine J. Wu/Smithsonianmag.com
By and large, asteroids have a tough time getting much closer to the sun than the approximate orbit of Earth. That’s what makes 2020 AV2 so special. This intrepid asteroid, first detected on January 4 by researchers at the Palomar Observatory in California, is now officially the first of its kind known to revolve around the sun within the orbit of Venus.
In other words, the space nugget is “intervenusian,” Gianluca Masi, director of the Virtual Telescope Project, who observed the asteroid on January 8, tells Laura Geggel at Live Science.
2020 AV2’s tight-knight tango with the sun also earns the asteroid a few more noteworthy titles. Apart from Mercury, no other natural object in our solar system is known to have a smaller aphelion—the point at which an orbiting body is farthest from the sun. Capable of completing a lap around its star in just 151 days, the space rock also has the shortest known orbital period of any asteroid documented thus far, Masi writes in a statement.
Nearly 1 million asteroids hail from the mid-to-outer reaches of our solar system, each a pint-sized relic left over from around the time the planets first formed.
Read Full Article at SmithsonsianMag.com
Carol graduated from Riverside White Cross School of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio and received her diploma as a registered nurse. She attended Bowling Green State University where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Literature. She attended the University of Toledo, College of Nursing, and received a Master’s of Nursing Science Degree as an Educator.
She has traveled extensively, is a photographer, and writes on medical issues. Carol has three children RJ, Katherine, and Stephen – one daughter-in-law; Katie – two granddaughters; Isabella Marianna and Zoe Olivia – and one grandson, Alexander Paul. She also shares her life with her husband Gordon Duff, many cats, and two rescues.
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