Gaia Has Observed Over 150K Asteroids In Our Solar System

ESA's Gaia mission has determined he orbits of 154,741 asteroids in our solar system.  Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

Transcript

00:00As well as stars, galaxies and quasars, Gaia also observes objects in our solar system,

00:22measuring their positions and brightnesses at different times.

00:26By far the largest group of solar system objects in Gaia's data release 3 are 154,741 asteroids,

00:37for which Gaia has determined the orbits.

00:39Depending on their orbits, one can distinguish different groups of asteroids.

00:44Most of the asteroids are in the main belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

00:51Over a period of about 10,000 years, Jupiter's powerful gravity can perturb an asteroid's path so strongly

00:59that some of them become Mars crossers.

01:01Do you notice another group that is around the distance of Jupiter?

01:06They are the so-called Trojans.

01:08They are collected in two clusters, preceding and following the giant planet, but never getting close to it.

01:15If we move beyond the orbit of Neptune, we find trans-Neptunian objects.

01:20Gaia observed the brightest 24 members of this population.

01:31Let's now focus again on the internal regions of the solar system.

01:38Back in the inner solar system, we find objects that come close to the Earth and sometimes cross its orbit.

01:44They were brought to the inner solar system from the main belt, due to gravitational perturbations by Jupiter and other planets.

01:51Due to close encounters with the terrestrial planets, the orbits of near-Earth asteroids reach large inclinations

01:58with respect to the Earth's orbit, and can also come very close to the Sun, where they experience strong heating.

02:04None of the known near-Earth objects is a danger to Earth in the coming decades,

02:09but it is very important to determine their orbits precisely.

02:14We now move close to the Earth and observe this group of 446 near-Earth asteroids.

02:23Finally, we move into the main belt and see many of the 153,220 asteroids passing by.

02:44NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology