2023-05-17
The small asteroid 2021 PH27 has the shortest orbital period of all
known asteroids with a perihelion of only 0.133 AU, and could be an active asteroid. Its orbit makes this asteroid to experience very close passes to Venus, where if active, could be the progenitor body of a venusian meteor shower. On June 07, 2023 asteroid 2021 PH27 will pass at a minimum distance of Venus of 133,000 km offering a possible test towards its activity by producing a venusian meteor shower. Detecting this meteor shower in Venus is a very low probability event, but amateur observers could attempt to detect flashes on Venus night-side on June 07 and June 08 with moderate exposure times (0.1-0.5 s). If a successful observation occurs it will be the first Venus meteor shower detected and it would also proof the suspected and not confirmed activity of asteroid 2021 PH27.
Dr. Javier Peralta (jperalta1 at us.es) leads part of the efforts to observe this potential meteor shower on Venus atmosphere. Observations can be analyzed with the software DeTect and communicated to Javier Peralta. Negative observations will also serve to characterize a threshold of activity on the asteroid.
References:
Carbognani et al. Is 2021 PH27 an active asteroid with a meteor shower detectable on Venus?, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 511,L40–L44, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slac004.
Arxiv version (public access to the publication)