How Sunlight Quietly Pushes Giant Asteroids Onto Surprising Collision Courses.

Could sunlight actually change the path of an asteroid enough to put it on a future collision course with Earth? Surprisingly, yes. The phenomenon is called the Yarkovsky effect. As an asteroid rotates, its surface absorbs sunlight and later releases that energy as infrared heat. That escaping radiation produces an incredibly tiny thrust. The force is almost impossible to notice over short periods, but over decades, centuries, and millions of years, it can gradually shift an asteroid's orbit. NASA has measured this effect on near-Earth asteroid Bennu, where the tiny thermal force has been shown to influence its long-term trajectory. In some cases, gradual orbital drift can move asteroids into gravitational resonances with planets, potentially placing them onto Earth-crossing paths. In this video, we explore how sunlight can act like an invisible engine, why asteroid rotation and surface properties matter, and how scientists account for this subtle force when predicting asteroid trajectories. The most surprising part is that the force moving an asteroid can be almost unimaginably small yet given enough time, it can change where that asteroid travels through the Solar System. #Asteroids #NASA #Space #PlanetaryDefense #Astronomy