It’s 750,000 miles away, but really, that’s pretty close.
On Monday night a “near-Earth” asteroid will fly through a cluster of stars known as the Beehive, in the eastern sky, at 35,000 mph. While it will be too faint to see with the naked eye, a simple at-home telescope or maybe even those nice binoculars in your drawer will do to get a glimpse of the biggest asteroid to come this close to Earth until it’s next go-around, in 200 years.
According to astronomers, it’s somewhere around the size of a couple of football stadiums. Some are calling it a space mountain.
Scientists say that the best time for viewing is around midnight.
NASA says the asteroid, called 2004 BL86, is about one-third of a mile in size – 500 meters in diameter.
While it poses no threat, it does present a rare opportunity for study. NASA scientists are excited to use microwaves, similar to what we use to make popcorn, to make observations, except they call it radar astronomy.
According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, radar astronomy uses the world’s largest dish antennas and beams direct microwave signals at their targets, as close as our moon or as far away as the moons of Saturn. The pulses bounce off the target, and a resulting “echo” is collected, and the results are magnificent.
JPL Radar astronomer Steve Ostro said, “Without launching a full-blown space mission we can actually get valuable information about the physical makeup of these objects.”
NASA will conduct observations from California and Puerto Rico. The asteroid was first discovered in late January 2004 at the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research survey in White Sands, New Mexico.
If you miss it, don’t worry, another asteroid, 1999 AN10, is expected to swing by in 2027.
You can also view 2004 BL86’s passing by virtual telescope at www.earthsky.org.
bmathis@durangoherald.com
