(ORDO NEWS) — Most asteroids revolve counterclockwise around the sun, but a recently discovered object that scientists have nicknamed Bee-Zed is behaving in a very strange way.
Not only does it rotate clockwise, it also enters the potential orbit of Jupiter, risking colliding with the giant planet and its 6,000 asteroids.
Of the millions of asteroids documented in the solar system, only 82 (and this is only 0.01% of the total) allow themselves to rotate clockwise.
As one recent study published in 2017 in the journal Nature points out, the asteroid Bee-Zed, or 2015 BZ509, is an exception even among these “outlaws” and is the only asteroid that intersects with the planet.
What makes this supernatural anomaly even stranger is the fact that, as already mentioned, Jupiter’s “retinue” includes 6,000 asteroids that follow the gas giant in a flyby orbit.
It is to them that Bee-Zed rushes with each of its orbital circles. According to calculations by astronomer Paul Weigert, the asteroid has been behaving like this for a million years,
This cannot be a mere coincidence. As noted in the study, Jupiter’s gravity causes the “rogue astroid” to adjust to the trajectory of the planet every time if they manage to cross.
It is this synchronicity that has, and will apparently keep Bee-Zed from colliding for millions of years. These data were obtained from an analysis of measurements made by the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona.
Mutual trajectories of the orbits of the asteroid and Jupiter
With each revolution that the asteroid and the planet make around the Sun, the first one enters and exits once from the gravitational attraction of the second.
This results in two opposing gravitational forces that keep the asteroid from ever getting too close to Jupiter: the extreme point of convergence is 175 million kilometers, which is almost the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
Things are somewhat more complicated with the host of asteroids that follow Jupiter. According to the calculations, each time the chance of a collision is only 1:1,000,000,000, that is, it is negligible. But asteroids, unlike the planet, do not have a gravitational “airbag”.
By the way, Bee-Zed itself was discovered by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in 2015 and scientists are still not sure if it is an asteroid or an icy comet that could come from the same source as the comet. Halley.
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