Gold medal for speed! Know all about asteroid 2021 PH27 which takes just 113 Earth days to complete journey around sun

Just a few days after asteroid 2016 AJ193 zoomed past our planet Earth, scientists have now discovered what is the fastest asteroid in our solar system. The asteroid termed 2021 PH27 finishes a single lap around the Sun every 113 days. This asteroid was discovered by scientists via Dark Energy Camera (DECam) in Chile.

Fascinatingly, the time taken by 2021 PH27 is the shortest by any object in the solar system, the second after the planet Mercury which takes shorter than 88 days to complete one revolution.

Not only this, asteroid 2021 PH27 comes 20 million kilometres (12.4 million miles) near the Sun while Mercury's closest approach stands at 47 million kilometres (29 million miles). 

Being so close to the sun, asteroid 2021 PH27 touches close to 500 degrees Celsius (900 F). The asteroid was first photographed and spotted on August 13 through the Dark Energy Camera (DEC). For the uninformed, the DEC is a multipurpose instrument that right now stands at the top of the Victor M. Blanco Telescope in Chile. 

The discovery team for the asteroid was helmed by an astronomer named Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC. 

In a statement, speaking about the asteroid and its nature, the astronomers said, "Its orbit is probably also unstable over long periods of time, and it will likely eventually either collide with Mercury, Venus or the Sun in a few million years, or be ejected from the inner Solar System by the inner planets' gravitational influence," India Today reported.