Largest asteroid to fly by Earth this year spotted in radar images
Image Credit:thefinancialexpress
A fresh batch of photos of the pair of mile-wide asteroids that safely passed past Earth in May have been released by NASA.
Asteroid 1989 JA came within 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometres) of Earth on May 27.
This distance is around ten times that between Earth and the moon
This asteroid system, which is four times the size of the Empire State Building is the largest one that is anticipated to fly by our planet in 2022.
Image Credit:news18
Image Credit:
Using the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California
astronomers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) followed the asteroid's movement and took in-depth radar pictures.
just released a new animation and image collage made from observations made on May 26.
Image Credit:naturalworldnews
NASA officials stated in a statement from JPL that 1989 JA does not now pose a risk of impact to Earth
but studies by planetary radar can help astronomers better understand its orbit around the sun so that any potential risk can be continuously reviewed.
Asteroid 1989 JA was the first binary asteroid to be found, consisting of a bigger primary asteroid and a considerably smaller satellite asteroid
asteroid that orbit each other approximately every 17 hours without colliding.