Six radar observations of an asteroid passing by our planet revealed an unusually long space rock. The object is three times its width and has a very irregular shape for an asteroid.
The asteroid, designated 2011 AG5, is approximately the size of the Empire State Building. The asteroid’s closest approach to Earth occurred on February 3 and came within 17.6 million kilometers of our planet. For comparison, we can say that the Webb Space Telescope is about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth.
The asteroid was detected in 2011 but only recently got close enough to Earth for scientists to see it well. The asteroid, about 500 meters long and 150 meters wide, was observed by the Goldstone Solar System Radar at the Deep Space Network facility between January 29 and February 4.
According to the detecting and measuring team, the asteroid is very tall. “Of the 1,040 near-Earth objects observed by planetary radar to date, this is one of the longest we’ve seen,” NASA chief scientist Lance Benner said in an agency statement.
The team also found that the 2011 AG5’s spin rate was rather slow: It takes nine hours for the object to complete one spin. The next arrival of the asteroid near Earth won’t happen until 2040, when it will then pass at a distance of about 1 million kilometers from Earth. For now, it continues to revolve in its 621-day orbit around the Sun.
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