The Polish astronomer is part of NASA’s planetary-defence programme, Catalina Sky Survey, which surveys the space for asteroids and other bodies coming close to the Earth (near-Earth objects, or NEOs).
Working with a 1.5 metre telescope out of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona in the southwestern United States, Wierzchoś occasionally comes across comets, which were the subject of his PhD, the Polish state news agency reported.
The latest new comet he has spotted had travelled past the Sun at a distance of 360 million kilometres, which is 2.4 times the Earth’s own usual distance from the Sun. The object is set to return to the solar system in around 25 years and has been named P/2021 U1(Wierzchoś).
The Polish astronomer had previously discovered two new comets. Last month, he identified the P/2021P4(Wierzchoś), which will reappear in 34 years, and in April 2020, he located the C/2020 H3, which makes its way around the Sun once in thousands of years.
Alongside NASA colleague Theodore Pruyne, the Polish space scientist has also discovered an asteroid that had been orbiting the Earth, the PAP news agency reported.
Christened 2020 CD3, the several-metre-wide body had been the Earth’s unspotted “small moon” for three years, before emerging out of the planet’s gravitational pull.
Mainly, however, the 33-year-old Wierzchoś, who hails from the eastern Polish city of Lublin, is concerned with spotting NEOs, which may pose a danger to the Earth.
“The US Congress has asked NASA to identify at least 90 percent of NEOs with a diameter of 140 metres and more, as such bodies could cause widespread damage if they hit our planet,” he told the Polish news agency.
Wierzchoś’s team had discovered over 1,500 such NEOs last year alone, while comets are spotted “in the meantime, as we spend hours behind the telescope, surveying the skies,” he told PAP.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP