A huge asteroid with an orbit that crosses that of Earth was discovered by an international team of astronomers on Monday, raising the tiny chance of a catastrophic crash.
The asteroid 2022 AP7, with a width of 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles), was found in a region where it is notoriously difficult to see asteroids because of the Sun's glare.
It was discovered alongside two other near-Earth asteroids with the help of a powerful tool installed on the Victor M. Blanco telescope in Chile that was originally formed to investigate dark matter.
According to senior researcher and astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, "2022 AP7 crosses Earth's orbit, which makes it a potentially hazardous asteroid, but it currently does not now or anytime in the future have a track that will have it collide with the Earth."
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