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Lost, Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Rediscovered
October 15, 2012 Animation of asteroid 2008SE85, moving between the stars. The images were tracked on the asteroid, thus the stars appear as small trails. Credit: ESA/E. Schwab
(Phys.org)—A potentially hazardous asteroid once found but then lost has been rediscovered and its orbit confirmed by a determined amateur astronomer working with ESA’s space hazards programme. The half-kilometre object will not threaten Earth anytime soon.Amateur astronomer Erwin Schwab, from Germany, conducted his asteroid hunt in September during a regular observation slot at ESA’s Optical Ground Station in Tenerife, Spain, sponsored by the Agency’s Space Situational Awareness programme. He was determined to rediscover the object, known by its catalogue name as 2008SE85. Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2008SE85 was discovered in September 2008 by the Catalina Sky Survey, and observed by a few observatories to October 2008.
EnlargeThe asteroid takes about two years to circle the Sun. The next close approach to our planet will be on 29 March 2013, to within a safe distance of about 15 million km, or about a tenth of the distance to the Sun. A much closer passage is predicted for 2098, when the asteroid will fly by at about 6 million km. This is twice the distance it was predicted to have before its re-discovery. Credit: ESA/DeimosAsteroid considered lost Since then, however, nobody had observed the object and predictions for its current position had become so inaccurate that the object was considered to be ‘lost’. Erwin planned his observing sequence to look for the object within the area of uncertainty of its predicted position. After only a few hours, he found it about 2° – four times the apparent size of the Moon – away from its predicted position.
lots of asteroids in this pic !