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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.
Observations made by a telescope in Hawaii determined his identity, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September. But NASA’s top asteroid expert Paul Chodas quickly suspected that it was the Centaur upper rocket stage from Surveyor 2, a moon landing mission that failed in 1966. Size estimates had placed it within the reach of the ancient Centaur, which was approximately 32 feet (10 meters) long and 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter.
Chodas was proven just after a team led by Vishnu Reddy from the University of Arizona used an infrared telescope in Hawaii to observe not only the mysterious object, but – just Tuesday – a 1971 Centaur still in orbit. around the Earth. The data in the images match.
“Today’s news was super rewarding!” Chodas said via email. “It was teamwork that closed this puzzle.”
The object officially known as 2020 SO entered a large unbalanced orbit around Earth last month and, on Tuesday, made its closest approach to just over 50,476 kilometers. It will leave the neighborhood in March and return to its own orbit around the sun. His next comeback: 2036.
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The Associated Press’s Department of Health and Science receives support from the Department of Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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