2023-12-01 17:36:53
For a few decades, astronomers have been paying attention not only to the planets and stars that surround us, but also to the billions of rocks that wander through space, especially those that come too close (specifically, the that pass less than 0.05 astronomical units from us, about 7.5 million kilometers). Now, China, thanks to its WFST (Wide Field Survey Telescope) telescope, has discovered a new nearby potentially dangerous asteroid for Earth that is 170 meters in diameter.
In reality, there were two asteroids that were initially found on November 18, receiving the names 2023 WX1 and 2023 WB2. By studying their trajectories, Chinese scientists realized that the first of them had a “minimum intersection distance of the Earth’s orbit of 0.0416 astronomical units,” equivalent to 6.22 million kilometers, the astronomers noted in a statement published by the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
A brand new telescope
With a diameter of 2.5 meters, the WFST was jointly developed by the University of Science and Technology of China and the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2022, the telescope was nicknamed Mozi after the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi, also known as Micius, who is said to have been the first in history to conduct optical experiments.
One of the main objectives of this telescope is to study objects in the solar system. According to Zhao Haibin, leader of WFST’s solar system bodies study program, astronomers using the telescope have already found a new batch of main belt asteroids and rediscovered several near-Earth asteroids.
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