Nasa Captures Earth Flyby of ‘Space Peanut’

Additional data shows that the peanut-shaped asteroid has a width of 1.2 miles, a calculation that has been obtained by analyzing the size, the shape and the rotations of the star.

NASA scientists have used two giant, Earth-based radio telescopes to bounce radar signals off a passing asteroid and produce images of the peanut-shaped body as it approached close to Earth this past weekend. The Goldstone radar signal was transmitted toward the asteroid, and the Green Bank Telescope received the radar echoes.

Judging by its current orbit, astronomers say it won’t be until 2054 that 1999 JD6 will approach our planet again.

NASA observed the asteroid as it came the closest to Earth in more than a century.

Not wanting to let this opportunity to learn a bit more about our Solar System slip by them, researchers pointed NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, and the National Science Foundation Bank Telescope in West Virginia at the space rock and managed to image its silhouette.

The radar data were used to create the video above, which shows 1999 JD6 over a course of about seven and a half hours – around the time it takes the asteroid to complete a single rotation. At that time, it was approximately 4.5 million miles away from Earth, or 19 times the distance separating the Earth and the Moon.

“I’m interested in this particular asteroid because estimates of its size from previous observations – at infrared wavelengths – have not agreed”, said Marshall, a Cornell doctoral student in the field of astronomy.

Asteroid 1999 JD6 was first discovered on May 12, 1999. Radar measurements of asteroid distances and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much further into the future than would be possible otherwise.

NASA places a priority on protecting Earth by detecting and tracking asteroids. That signifies world Earth should have another finish off using this asteroid in 40 many years.

To scientists, such asteroids are known as contact binaries. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.