The asteroid designated 2021 PH27 was discovered by Scott S. Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution of Science in data collected by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile.
The orbit of the approximately 1-kilometer-diameter asteroid takes it as close as 20 million kilometers, from the Sun every 113 days. Asteroid 2021 PH27, revealed in images acquired during twilight, also has the smallest mean distance (semi-major axis) of any known asteroid in our Solar System — only Mercury has a shorter period and smaller semi-major axis. The asteroid is so close to the Sun’s massive gravitational field, it experiences the largest general relativistic effects of any known Solar System object.
The fastest orbital period 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. The asteroid was imaged inside Mercury’s orbit and has been colored red and blue to show the two different times where it was imaged on the discovery night of 13 August 2021 — just three minutes apart. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/DOE/DECam/AURA/S.S. Sheppard (Carnegie Institution of Science)
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