Awesome Radar Images Reveal Asteroid 2014 HQ124′s Split Personality

(Before It's News)

Radar delay-Doppler images of asteroid 2014 HQ124. Arecibo Observatory images appear on the top row and Goldstone images appear on the other rows: the larger Arecibo Observatory capabilities eliminated the “snow” visible in the other images. Credit: Marina Brozovic and Joseph Jao, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/ Caltech/ NASA/ USRA/ Arecibo Observatory/ NSF

On June 8, the 1,300-foot asteroid 2014 HQ124 breezed by Earth at a distance of just 800,000 miles (1.3 million km). Only hours after closest approach, astronomers used a pair of radio telescopes to produce some of the most detailed images of a near-Earth asteroid ever obtained.  They reveal a peanut-shaped world called a ‘contact binary’, an asteroid comprised of two smaller bodies touching.(…)
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© Bob King for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: 2014 HQ124, arecibo, asteroid, contact binary, Goldstone, Itokawa

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