In the glare of the Sun

Searches during twilight toward the Sun have found several asteroids near Venus’ orbit Asteroid surveys generally operate at night, mostly finding objects beyond Earth’s orbit. This creates a blind spot because many near-Earth objects (NEOs) could be lurking in the sunlight interior to Earth’s orbit. New telescopic surveys are braving the Sun’s glare and searching for asteroids toward the Sun during twilight. These surveys have found many previously undiscovered asteroids interior to Earth, including the first asteroid with an orbit interior to Venus, ’Ayló’chaxnim (2020 AV2), and an asteroid with the shortest-known orbital period around the Sun, 2021 PH27 ( 1 , 2 ).