NASA team spots a 1600-foot oddly shaped asteroid as big as Empire State Building
A 1600 feet long, oddly shaped celestial object called 2011 AG5 flew past Earth on February 3, said NASA adding that the asteroid’s dimensions are comparable to the Empire State Building.
Scientists at the United States-based NASA have found “one of the most elongated asteroids” ever pictured by their planetary radar. The space agency said that the asteroid flew past Earth at a safe distance, earlier this month, but what caught their attention was the odd shape which they described as oblong. The asteroid was being closely tracked by the scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, US who made “invaluable observations to help determine its size, rotation, surface details, and, most notably, shape,” said the space agency in a press release.
The asteroid in question is called 2011 AG5 whose close approach on February 3 gave scientists the opportunity to get a detailed look at the celestial object first discovered in 2011. The asteroid is said to be 1600 feet long and about 500 feet wide and its dimensions are comparable to the Empire State Building. The celestial object was seen by the powerful 230-foot (70-metre) Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna dish at the Deep Space Network's facility near Barstow, California, revealing the dimensions of this extremely elongated asteroid, said NASA.
The principal scientist at JPL who helped lead the observations, Lance Benner noted that there have been 1,040 near-Earth objects observed by planetary radar out of which 2011 AG5 has been “one of the most elongated we’ve seen”. The observations which took place at the end of last month and ended on February 4 also noted other details like a large, broad concavity in one of the asteroid’s two hemispheres and would appear as dark as charcoal if it were to be viewed by the human eye.
“The observations also confirmed 2011 AG5 has a slow rotation rate, taking nine hours to fully rotate,” said NASA. The space agency also confirmed that since the radar provides precise distance measurements, they believe that asteroid 2011 AG5 orbits the Sun once every 621 days. Earth will not have a close encounter with it until 2040 and even then it will pass at a distance of about 670,000 miles (1.1 million kilometres), it added.
“Interestingly, shortly after its discovery, 2011 AG5 became a poster-child asteroid when our analysis showed it had a small chance of a future impact,” said Paul Chodas, the director of NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at JPL. He added, “Continued observations of this object ruled out any chance of impact, and these new ranging measurements by the planetary radar team will further refine exactly where it will be far into the future.”
NASA discovers asteroid is a dead ringer for the Empire State Building
This oddball space rock is anything but ball-like.
By Elisha Sauers on February 18, 2023
With dimensions comparable to the Empire State Building, 2011 AG5 is one of the most elongated asteroids to be observed by planetary radar, shown in this collage of six telescope images.. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Imagine this hurtling through space: Scientists have found an asteroid with dimensions similar to the Empire State Building.
This asteroid, which recently sped past Earth, has caught the attention of NASA astronomers for its bizarre long shape. The space rock — which has perhaps whizzed by to set the record straight that not all asteroids are vaguely ball-like — is more than three times as long as it is wide.
To get a sense of its scale, scientists have estimated the rock is about 1,600-by-500 feet, roughly comparable to that of the world-famous landmark that looms over 100 stories above New York.
"Of the 1,040 near-Earth objects observed by planetary radar to date, this is one of the most elongated we’ve seen," said Lance Benner, principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement(Opens in a new tab).
The asteroid, known as 2011 AG5, zipped past Earth at a safe distance of 1.1 million miles away on Feb. 3, according to the U.S. space agency. But that approach gave astronomers their first crack at studying its size, rotation, surface, and silhouette in detail since the object was discovered 12 years ago. "This is one of the most elongated [asteroids] we’ve seen."
The image above is a collage of six pictures taken of the long object by the Goldstone Solar System Radar(Opens in a new tab) antenna dish in California. There were no signs of King Kong clinging to the towering rock, but astronomers did make a few other observations: It has a dark charcoal color, appears to be scooped on one side, and is slowly spinning around every nine hours.
It takes the asteroid about twice as long to orbit the sun as Earth and won’t have a near flyby with this planet until 2040, when it could come within 670,000 miles, according to NASA. That's close in terms of the cosmos — space, after all, is a big place — but it's still three times farther than the moon is to Earth.
A 2012 plot of asteroid 2011 AG5, which shows that it travels beyond the orbit of Mars and as close to the sun as halfway between Earth and Venus. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / NEOPO
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Millions of space rocks orbit the sun. They're the rocky rubble left over from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Most of that ancient detritus is too far away to pose a threat to this planet. The majority are in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but occasionally rocks get nudged into the inner solar system, relatively closer to Earth.
There are no known asteroids on an impact course with Earth. Scientists are, however, keeping a close watch on 30,000 large objects(Opens in a new tab) out there and estimate there could be 15,000 or so more waiting to be discovered. Using powerful telescopes to scan the sky, astronomers are finding about 500 new sizable space rocks in Earth's solar system neighborhood each year.
"An asteroid impact is an extremely rare event," said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer for NASA, last year. "Maybe once a century is there an asteroid that we would really worry about and want to deflect."
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But even smaller rocks can cause immense destruction. An impact by an asteroid some 100 to 170 feet wide could destroy a small city(Opens in a new tab), according to NASA. Ten years ago this week, on Feb. 15, 2013, an undetected meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia(Opens in a new tab), causing a disaster that affected six cities and injured 1,600 people. The rock was just 60 feet across.
Nations are developing warning systems and defense strategies, in case an asteroid or comet should ever meander into an orbit that could jeopardize civilization. As a test, NASA launched a spacecraft in November 2022, known as the DART mission, to intentionally crash into a harmless asteroid in deep space to try to shift its trajectory. The $330 million exercise was successful, proving NASA is capable of thwarting a potentially hazardous space rock in the future.
Shortly after 2011 AG5 was discovered, some people were concerned(Opens in a new tab) it could be a danger to the planet decades into the future. Armed with little information about its orbit at the time, scientists couldn't make accurate estimates about its location to put people's minds at ease.
Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies(Opens in a new tab) at the lab, said the asteroid "became a poster child" when early observations showed it had a small chance of a future Earth hit.
"Continued observations of this object ruled out any chance of impact," he said in a statement.(Opens in a new tab) "And these new ranging measurements by the planetary radar team will further refine exactly where it will be far into the future.”
Elisha Sauers is the space and future tech reporter for Mashable, interested in asteroids, astronauts, and astro nuts. In over 15 years of reporting, she's covered a variety of topics, including health, business, and government, with a penchant for FOIA and other public records requests. She previously worked for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, and The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland, now known as The Capital-Gazette. She's won numerous state awards for beat reporting and national recognition(Opens in a new tab) for narrative storytelling. Send space tips and story ideas to elisha.sauers@ziffmedia.com or text 443-684-2489. Follow her on Twitter at @elishasauers(Opens in a new tab).
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