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A single "double asteroid" was photographed by a powerful telescope while it was spinning at over 43,000 km / h last month.
The asteroid, filed in 1999 KW4, is composed of two components: a larger body orbited by another smaller, distant about 2.5 km. It's approached 3.2 million miles from Earth on May 25 – about 14 times the distance from Earth to the moon, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said Monday in a statement. press.
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The double asteroid, whose orbit is well known to scientists, does not pose a threat to the Earth, said ESO officials. Scientists from ESO and the International Asteroid Alert Network collaborated to plan the overflight and properly prepare the object observation.
The left image shows the SPHERE observations of the 1999 KW4 asteroid. The angular resolution in this picture equates to choosing a single building in New York – from Paris. The artistic imprint of the asteroid couple is illustrated on the right. (ESO)
The organization said that she had used her very large telescope (VLT) to spot the asteroid that was passing. The VLT has been able to capture images sharp enough to distinguish the two parts of the asteroid through its spectro-polarimetric high contrast exoplanets (SPHERE) instrument. The main purpose of SPHERE is to observe exoplanets – planets outside our solar system.
ESO astronomer Olivier Hainaut said the data obtained would contribute to the evaluation of effective strategies to divert potential asteroids during a collision with the Earth.
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"In the worst case, this knowledge is also essential for predicting how an asteroid could interact with the atmosphere and surface of the Earth, thus allowing us to limit damage in the event of a collision," he said. declared.
ESO noted that KW4 1999 is similar to a binary asteroid called Didymos and his smaller orbiting companion, Didymoon, who could become a threat to the Earth in the distant future.
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