Peanuts! Get your peanuts right here! The Photo voltaic System has been passing out peanuts currently within the type of two completely different oddly formed asteroids that just lately handed by Earth, and each appear to be over-sized peanuts. The most recent peanut-shaped asteroid move was on September 16, 2024, when the near-Earth asteroid 2024 ON got here inside 1 million kilometers (62,000 miles) of Earth (2.6 occasions the Earth-Moon distance). Radar imaging revealed the asteroid was peanut-shaped as a result of it’s really a contact binary – which suggests it’s made from two smaller objects touching one another. NASA says the 2 rounded lobes are separated by a pronounced neck, and one lobe about 50% bigger than the opposite.
In complete, 2024 ON measures about 350 meters (382 yards) lengthy. The radar might resolve options right down to about 3.75 meters throughout on the floor, together with brighter boulders. NASA says about 14% of asteroids on this dimension vary (bigger than about 200 meters (660 toes)) are contact binaries.
Simply final month, on August 18-19, 2024, the opposite “peanut” handed by our planet. Asteroid 2024 JV33 seems to even be a contact binary with two rounded lobes, one lobe bigger than the opposite, and is about 300 meters (980 toes) lengthy, about so long as the Eiffel Tower. Imagery confirmed that asteroid 2024 JV33 rotates as soon as each seven hours. It safely handed Earth just a little additional than 2024 ON, at a distance of 4.6 million km (2.8 million miles), about 12 occasions the gap between the Moon and Earth.
Each asteroids had been captured in a sequence of radar photographs obtained by the Deep House Community’s Goldstone Photo voltaic System Radar close to Barstow, California. The principal method for learning asteroids is radar – referred to as planetary radar. Whereas astronomers can research the Universe by capturing gentle from stars, planets, and galaxies, they will additionally research close by objects by shining radio gentle on them and analyzing the alerts that echo again. Planetary radar can reveal extremely detailed details about our planetary neighbors.
“When astronomers are learning gentle that’s being made by a star, or galaxy, they’re making an attempt to determine its properties,” mentioned Patrick Taylor, radar division head for the Nationwide Radio Astronomy Observatory, in an interview I did with him earlier this 12 months. “However with radar, we already know what the properties of the alerts are, and we leverage that to determine the properties of no matter we bounced the alerts off of. That permits us to characterize planetary our bodies – like their form, velocity, and trajectory. That’s particularly necessary for hazardous objects which may stray too near Earth.”
2024 ON was found by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Final Alert System (ATLAS) on Mauna Loa in Hawaii on July 27. The asteroid was found by the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona, on Could 4.
NASA labels objects bigger than 492 toes that come inside 4.6 million miles of Earth “probably hazardous objects,” so scientists are monitoring 2024 JV33 for potential hazard although they don’t count on the asteroid to pose a menace sooner or later.
