![]() This illustration shows a near-Earth asteroid similar to asteroid 2020 SW, which will safely pass by Earth on Thursday, Sept. Instead of circling the sun every 359 days, it will move into an oval orbit lasting 425 days, according to NASA. The asteroid’s path drastically will be altered by Earth’s gravity once it zips by. Within a few days, dozens of observations were made by astronomers around the world, allowing them to refine the asteroid’s orbit. It was first spotted by the same amateur astronomer in Crimea, Gennadiy Borisov, who discovered an interstellar comet in 2019. “In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.”ĭiscovered Saturday, the asteroid known as 2023 BU is believed to be between 11 feet (3.5 meters) and 28 feet (8.5 meters) feet across. “But despite the very few observations, it was nonetheless able to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach with Earth,” Farnocchia said in a statement. NASA’s impact hazard assessment system, called Scout, quickly ruled out a strike, said its developer, Davide Farnocchia, an engineer at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. WATCH: Neil deGrasse Tyson explains NASA’s asteroid-shifting DART mission Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind. local.)Įven if the space rock came a lot closer, scientists said most of it would burn up in the atmosphere, with some of the bigger pieces possibly falling as meteorites. brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. The closest approach will occur at 7:27 p.m. That’s 10 times closer than the bevy of communication satellites circling overhead. NASA said Wednesday that this newly discovered asteroid will zoom 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers) above the southern tip of South America. NASA insists it will be a near miss with no chance of the asteroid hitting Earth. (AP) - An asteroid the size of a delivery truck will whip past Earth on Thursday night, one of the closest such encounters ever recorded. It can spot small asteroids half a day before they arrive at Earth and could point to larger asteroids days before.Īlthough much of the knowledge of their capabilities and determinations about the asteroid was worked out after the fact, astronomers believe that ATLAS and Pan-STARRS could help predict more in the future.CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. It entered the atmosphere over the ocean, 236 miles south of the city.ĪTLAS, which is two telescopes 100 miles apart on the Big Island and Maui, scans the entire sky every two nights for asteroids that could impact Earth. The calculation matched up, and weather radar in San Juan detected the asteroid as it burned up in our atmosphere. The additional images from the Pan-STARRS telescope helped researchers better determine the entry path for the asteroid, which bumped the Scout rating to 4. The Pan-STARRS telescope was also operating and captured part of the sky where the asteroid could be seen. On International Asteroid Day, here's what to know about the threat to Earth 2 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a range of 15 miles (24 km). This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 Pol圜am images collected on Dec. For reference, 0 is “unlikely” and 4 is “likely.” Davide Farnocchia, navigation engineer at JPL, requested additional observations because he noticed a detection near Puerto Rico 12 hours later. Initially, the Scout impact analysis software at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory deemed the potential impact as a 2. The ATLAS facility observed it four times over 30 minutes around midnight in Hawaii. The asteroid, named 2019 MO, was 13 feet in diameter and 310,685 miles from Earth. New images reveal Ryugu is an oddly dust-free asteroidĪstronomers at the University of Hawaii used the ATLAS and Pan-STARRS survey telescopes to detect a small asteroid before it entered Earth’s atmosphere on the morning of June 22. Ryugu is a body with no atmosphere, so the outlines of MASCOT are sharp in the shadows projected onto the asteroid surface. On the bottom left is MASCOT's shadow, which the Sun behind the landing probe is projecting onto the asteroid surface: MASCOT is 30 centimeters long. The images show a huge boulder, which occupies the eastern (right) edge of the image and is several tens of meters in length. Compared with the first image, it is clear that MASCOT moved turbulently towards Ryugu, as expected, thus performing turns and rollovers. The second image of the DLR-developed MASCAM camera is directed obliquely downward on the asteroid Ryugu and covers areas east of the descent route. ![]()
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