On February 3, 2023, an asteroid came close to Earth to a minimum distance of approximately 1.8 million kilometers, or slightly less than five times the distance between the Moon and Earth.
Although there was no risk of the asteroid (called 2011 AG5) hitting our planet, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in southern California, United States, closely followed the object, making valuable observations that helped determine its size, rotation, details of its surface and, above all, its shape.
This approach to Earth provided the first opportunity to take a detailed look at the asteroid since it was discovered in 2011.
A powerful 70-meter-diameter satellite dish, located near Barstow, California, and part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, revealed the dimensions of this remarkably elongated asteroid.
Observations made while it was close to Earth revealed that it is a body about 500 meters long and about 150 meters wide.
“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, a JPL scientist who co-led the observations.
This collage shows six planetary radar observations of 2011 AG5 one day after the asteroid came to Earth’s closest distance on February 3. (Images: NASA JPL/Caltech)
The observations took place between January 29 and February 4, and captured other details:
In addition to a large concavity in one of the asteroid’s two hemispheres, 2011 AG5 exhibits subtle dark and light areas that could indicate the presence of small surface features a few tens of meters in diameter.
If the asteroid were seen directly by human eyes, we would see it as dark as coal.
The observations also confirmed that 2011 AG5 has a slow rotation rate, taking nine hours to complete one revolution.
The asteroid 2011 AG5 takes 621 days to go around the Sun completely. It will not have a very close encounter with Earth until 2040, when it will come close to our planet to a minimum distance of approximately 1.1 million kilometers, or almost three times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. It has been determined that this pass of 2011 AG5 near Earth in 2040 will not entail any danger of a collision with Earth. (Fountain: NCYT de Amazings)