Scientists identify mysterious asteroid disintegrating near the Sun via meteor stream

In the quiet burn of 282 meteors across Earth's upper atmosphere, a planetary scientist has uncovered the slow unraveling of an asteroid too close to the Sun for telescopes to see. Published in March 2026, the discovery traces a debris stream to an object in an extreme orbit — one that swings nearly five times nearer to the Sun than Earth — where intense solar radiation is cracking it apart, grain by grain. What the sky reveals in fleeting light, science is learning to read as a warning written in stone.