Asteroid Entire Inside Orbit of Venus
On January 04, 2020, a team of astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory discovered a new asteroid, 2020 AV2. The orbit of this object is so close to the Sun that the observation window shut just 19 days later. This observation window did, however, allow the team to determine that 2020 AV2 spends its entire 151.2-day, roughly circular orbit inside the orbit of Venus.
The analysis of the orbit of 2020 AV2 provided enough data to allow two independent teams to infer the object’s orbital past and future. Their newly published analyses agree that 2020 AV2 is close to an orbital resonance with Venus. If other asteroids occupy similar orbits, they could constitute a large and stable population that awaits discovery.
