When sunlight hits an asteroid’s surface, minerals in the rock absorb some wavelengths while reflecting others. “We’re trying to do geology with a telescope,” said Vishnu Reddy, associate professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. This will be achieved, in part, with the use of NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility ( IRTF), a 3.2-meter (10.5-foot) telescope atop Hawaii’s Mauna Kea that will observe the asteroid in the days leading up to close approach using its workhorse infrared spectrograph, SpeX. how bright, or reflective, its surface is), and a rough idea of its composition. The March 21 encounter will provide an opportunity for astronomers to get a more precise understanding of the asteroid’s size and albedo (i.e.
While 2001 FO32 is somewhat smaller than 1998 OR2, it will be three times nearer to Earth. The last notably large asteroid close approach was that of 1998 OR2 on April 29, 2020. Analysis by the NEOWISE team shows that it is between 1,300 to 2,230 feet (440 to 680 meters) wide.Įven if it is at the smaller end of the scale, 2001 FO32 will still be the largest asteroid to pass this close to our planet in 2021. In more recent follow-up observations by NEOWISE, 2001 FO32 appears to be faint when observed in infrared wavelengths, which suggests the object is likely less than 1 kilometer in diameter. It completes one orbit every 810 days (about 2 1/4 years).Īfter its brief visit, 2001 FO32 will continue its lonely voyage, not coming this close to Earth again until 2052, when it will pass by at about seven lunar distances, or 1.75 million miles (2.8 million kilometers).Īsteroid 2001 FO32 was discovered in March 2001 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research ( LINEAR) program in Socorro, New Mexico, and had been estimated, based on optical measurements, to be roughly 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) wide. This orbit takes the asteroid closer to the Sun than Mercury and twice as far from the Sun as Mars.Īs 2001 FO32 makes its inner solar system journey, the asteroid picks up speed like a skateboarder rolling down a halfpipe, and then slows after being flung back out into deep space and swinging back toward the Sun. The reason for the asteroid’s unusually speedy close approach is its highly inclined and elongated (or eccentric) orbit around the Sun, an orbit that is tilted 39 degrees to Earth’s orbital plane.
Still, that distance is close in astronomical terms, which is why 2001 FO32 has been designated a “potentially hazardous asteroid.” CNEOS computes high-precision orbits for near-Earth objects (NEOs) in support of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, relying on telescopes and ground-based radar to help precisely characterize every NEO’s orbit to improve long-term hazard assessments.ĭuring this approach, 2001 FO32 will pass by at about 77,000 mph (124,000 kph) – faster than the speed at which most asteroids encounter Earth. The Halloween flyby will be the closest approach of an object as large as asteroid 2015 TB145 until 2027, when an asteroid even larger - the 2,600-foot (800 m) object called 1999 AN10 - will pass Earth at a range of 238,000 miles (383,023 km), or about the same distance between the Earth and moon.Įmail Tariq Malik at or follow him and Google+. "We plan to test a new capability to obtain radar images with two-meter resolution for the first time and hope to see unprecedented levels of detail." "The close approach of 2015 TB145 at about 1.3 times the distance of the moon's orbit, coupled with its size, suggests it will be one of the best asteroids for radar imaging we'll see for several years," JPL scientist Lance Benner, who leads NASA's asteroid radar research program, said in a statement. In addition to the Arecibo Observatory, NASA scientists will use the agency's Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna in Goldstone, California to image asteroid 2015 TB145. The asteroid also rotates once every five hours, and is hurtling through space at a speed of about 78,293 mph (126,000 km/h), according to the NAIC statement on Facebook.
30) using the Planetary Radar Group at the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have revealed that the asteroid is about 1,968.5 feet (600 meters) wide, "which is larger than expected," according to a statement from the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), which runs the observatory. "We are expecting them to be really spectacular and that they are going to show a wealth of surface features," Brozovic said. (Image credit: National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Arecibo Observatory)) They show views of the so-called Halloween asteroid as it rotated during a 40-minute observation ahead of its Oct.
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This series of radar images of the asteroid 2015 TB145 were captured by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
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