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Credit & Copyright: Carlo Dellarole,
Andrea Demarchi
Explanation:
On Monday, January 26, well-tracked
asteroid
2004 BL86 made its
closest approach, a mere 1.2 million kilometers from our fair planet.
That's about 3.1 times the Earth-Moon distance or 4 light-seconds
away.
Moving quickly through Earth's night sky, it left this streak
in a 40 minute long exposure on January 27 made from Piemonte, Italy.
The remarkably pretty field of view includes
M44, also known as the Beehive
or Praesepe star cluster in Cancer.
Of course, its close encounter with M44 is only an apparent one,
with the cluster nearly along the same line-of-sight to the
near-earth asteroid.
The actual distance between star cluster and
asteroid
is around 600 light-years.
Still, the close approach to planet Earth allowed
detailed radar imaging from NASA's Deep Space Network antenna
at Goldstone, California and revealed the
asteroid
to have its own moon.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: asteroid
Publications with words: asteroid
See also: