Two-lobed asteroid imaged by radar
Click for original image.
During the August 18, 2024 first close fly-by of a potentially-dangerous asteroid only discovered back in May, astronomers used the Goldstone dish in California to produce the high resolution radar images shown in the picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here.
The images were captured when the asteroid was at a distance of 2.8 million miles (4.6 million kilometers), about 12 times the distance between the Moon and Earth.
Discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona, on May 4, the near-Earth asteroid’s shape resembles that of a peanut – with two rounded lobes, one lobe larger than the other. Scientists used the radar images to determine that it is about 980 feet (300 meters) long and that its length is about double its width. Asteroid 2024 JV33 rotates once every seven hours.
Asteroids formed as contact binaries, once considered the stuff of science fiction, have now been found to be relatively common, comprising about 14% of the near Earth asteroids larger than 700 feet across that have been radar-imaged. The refined orbital data suggests this asteroid might be a dead comet, though that conclusion is unconfirmed. That orbital data also tells us that though this object has the potential of hitting the Earth, it will not do so “for the foreseeable future.”
Click for original image.
During the August 18, 2024 first close fly-by of a potentially-dangerous asteroid only discovered back in May, astronomers used the Goldstone dish in California to produce the high resolution radar images shown in the picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here.
The images were captured when the asteroid was at a distance of 2.8 million miles (4.6 million kilometers), about 12 times the distance between the Moon and Earth.
Discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona, on May 4, the near-Earth asteroid’s shape resembles that of a peanut – with two rounded lobes, one lobe larger than the other. Scientists used the radar images to determine that it is about 980 feet (300 meters) long and that its length is about double its width. Asteroid 2024 JV33 rotates once every seven hours.
Asteroids formed as contact binaries, once considered the stuff of science fiction, have now been found to be relatively common, comprising about 14% of the near Earth asteroids larger than 700 feet across that have been radar-imaged. The refined orbital data suggests this asteroid might be a dead comet, though that conclusion is unconfirmed. That orbital data also tells us that though this object has the potential of hitting the Earth, it will not do so “for the foreseeable future.”
